In the Business of Innovating Futures

Ms Joanne Pimlott
Director, Enterprise Education Group

"What we need is an entrepreneurial society in which innovation and entrepreneurship are normal, steady and continuous." Peter Drucker

Background | Aims | Description | Evaluation | Contact

Background

We originally established a Graduate Diploma in Business Enterprise to meet the specific needs of graduates from any discipline who wanted to receive education, training and support to establish and manage their own innovative small businesses. Immediately we recognised the opportunities for extending this exciting and increasingly relevant educational experience. An Enterprise Education Group (EEG) was formed that sought to promote and develop an enterprise culture, entrepreneurship and small business management education, and offer this to the higher education sector, secondary school system, small business sector and general community.

The EEG comprises academic, research and administrative staff of the Mechanical Engineering Department together with lecturers from elsewhere in the University of Adelaide, Flinders University, the University of South Australia and the Small Business Management Education Centre of the Adelaide Institute of TAFE. Local business people also contribute to programs in the capacity of guest speakers and mentors.

Aims

To:

• give students an understanding of the nature, processes and practices of entrepreneurship, innovation and small business management;
• provide students with opportunities to become more enterprising in attitudes, skills and behaviours;
• enable students to become familiar with and to assess their own skills, abilities and aptitude for self-employment;
• provide students with the knowledge and skills needed to effectively establish, manage or work within an innovative small enterprise.

Description

We offer a number of programs and schemes that teach entrepreneurial skills, using a flexible delivery through which the students can co-create the curriculum. These programs (listed on our website ) cater for graduates from any discipline, as well as TAFE graduates.

Students attracted to the programs, whether on-campus or externally (through Open Learning Australia), usually have quite pragmatic interests. They often have clear business aspirations and enjoy taking responsibility for tailoring their learning experiences. This produces a truly student centred education for intrinsically motivated students with a natural inclination to pursue excellence.

We have made a sustained effort to infuse the curriculum with opportunities to be enterprising, rather than just be a series of subjects about enterprise and entrepreneurship. We ask our students to take an entrepreneurial approach to their education. What do they need from the course to fulfil their aims? How can they best access information? How will they know that they have achieved their educational goals? In this model the teacher becomes a facilitator rather than a transmitter of knowledge. Students are encouraged to 'shape' their own learning in order to cater for their individual needs. For example, students who are in the process of establishing their own businesses are encouraged to develop a business plan for their own business, rather than use an abstract example. From this students can glean where their particular weaknesses are in relation to the many aspects of business planning, and can work on those areas. Each case (student) is itself a mini innovation in curriculum that feeds back into the curriculum development process.

Environment
It was important to this initiative to create a sympathetic environment. The EEG is based at the Thebarton Commerce and Research Precinct (not part of any other campus) as are the new enterprises established by graduates of our programs. The Campus is also predominantly self-funding and revenue is obtained from commercial tenants who see a benefit from moving onto a university campus. These tenants, together with the graduate entrepreneurs’ new enterprises and others within the business incubator (also located on campus) give the campus a strong business and entrepreneurial orientation. Most enterprises are in the category of 'intelligent’ or actively pursue innovation. The Campus is therefore very conducive to the goals and activities of the EEG; i.e. it has an entrepreneurial culture.

Network
In addition to the Graduate Programs the EEG develops and runs a range of non-award programs in the areas of small business management, entrepreneurial management and innovation. Examples are: workshops on self-employment offered for university students and graduates; short courses on innovation strategies for small business owner/managers; staff seminars on entrepreneurial management run as part of the University’s staff development program, and self-employment workshops run for senior secondary students in conjunction with students’ work experience in businesses on the Thebarton Precinct. All of these initiatives allow the EEG to remain close to the market-place, to source business people and entrepreneurs as guest speakers for the Graduate Programs, and to learn about the myriad of challenges facing small business, the results of which are 'fed’ into the programs developed for graduate entrepreneurs.

 Evaluation

The testimonials to date indicate that those who have participated in our programs particularly the Graduate Certificate or Diploma in Business Enterprise, both on-campus and externally, gain some or all of the following as outcomes of the course:

• An increased level of self-confidence
• A greater ability to stay focused on the objective or goal for which they were pursuing study which is usually the goal of getting a new business up and running;
• Marketplace knowledge that may well have taken many more years to acquire if they were only learning 'by doing’ i.e. by the actual practice of starting a business instead of the addition of learning through the course
• Networking with others also engaged in business creation process
• Assignments linked to business activities or project work being undertaken
• Structure of course 'forces’ individual to 'stay on track’ with their business goals
• Improved ability to recognise an opportunity and know how to evaluate it whether it be an idea for a new venture or an opportunity to assess an existing business’ position or part of an organisation.
• The website has a section titled "Success Stories" <http://www.eeg.adelaide.edu.au/success.html (inactive 25/8/03)> which includes details both of the diversity of graduates who have participated in the Programs as well as a number of testimonials. (see http://www.ecic.adelaide.edu.au/ne/newsroom/#feb11)

Contact
Ms Joanne Pimlott

Director Enterprise Education Group
Department of Mechanical Engineering
Adelaide University, Australia 5005

Email: joanne.pimlott@adelaide.edu.au (inactive 2/10/08)
EEG website: www.ecic.adelaide.edu.au

 

Last updated 02/09/03