A THICK-necked sergeant will not be screaming commands to do 40 push ups. Instead, recruits to a "boot camp" being held in Glasgow this week will be pushing themselves to come up with ideas for making money and setting up businesses.
Some 50 Scottish university students are taking part in the entrepreneurial boot camp. Using techniques familiar to viewers of popular television series The Apprentice and Dragon's Den, the project will present students with a series of challenges an
d skills development exercises. At the end of the week, organisers expect to have ten to 12 business ideas which will be pitched to a Dragon's Den-style panel, including John Anderson, chief executive of the Entrepreneurial Exchange.
Anderson will then arrange for teams to meet relevant members of the Entrepreneurial Exchange, who include some of Scotland's most successful entrepreneurs such as Sir Tom Hunter and Sir Bill Gammell, to help develop the ideas over the summer.
The project is the brainchild of James Barlow, the chief executive of the Scottish Institute for Enterprise (SIE), an organisation that promotes enterprise and entrepreneurship among students studying at Scotland's 19 higher education institutions.
It is the first time SIE has run such a programme. Barlow recruited 50 students from more than 200 applicants who responded to notices on popular social networking site Facebook as well as through the organisation's network at universities.
Barlow interviewed each potential candidate by ringing them up asking them what they would do if he gave them £5 million to start a business, and selected participants on the basis of their answers.
"Basically we were looking for people with drive and ambition and flair to be creative and to look for the right mix of people," said Barlow.
Students will see presentations during the week including a talk from Dr Tina Seelig, the executive director of Stanford University's Technology Ventures Program, who flew in from Bangkok yesterday to lead the students on exercises such as mind mapping and brainstorming.
The students were surprised with the first Apprentice-style challenge. Teams were given £50 and told to come up with ideas on how to invest the money to make a profit by noon the following day, while the enticement was they would be allowed to keep the profits.
Afterwards, the students will be involved in creating ideas for hundreds of businesses on four key themes: the web and technology, engineering and design, social enterprise and environmental sustainability. Each student will then choose which business they would like to take forward. They will then prepare pitches which they will present to the panel on Friday.
The full article contains 443 words and appears in The Scotsman newspaper.
