Making European Universities More Entrepreneurial
Most European universities are not (yet) producing significant volumes of entrepreneurial outputs. However, Europe is increasingly in need of innovation and jobs creation. To tackle this problem, I co-created an EU Knowledge Alliance and a master's program aimed at spurring entrepreneurship and innovation in European universities through experiential learning, Silicon Valley's best practices, Stanford's entrepreneurial university model, and the engagement of local ecosystems.
My collaborators and I built a European network of universities, companies and foundations from nine EU member states, and Stanford as the only extra-EU partner. Together, we designed and piloted Europe's first experiential Master's program in Entrepreneurship whose students' core deliverable is creating a technology venture. We also built digital tools supporting students throughout their venture creation and learning process.
My main contributions were: creating the partnership between Stanford, the European Commission (which funds the Alliance), and the University of Milan Bicocca (which leads the network); embedding design thinking and Silicon Valley innovation and entrepreneurship practices at the core of SMARTUP; leading the Stanford executive program for the SMARTUP European faculty and executives; leading the overall program's design; leading the Stanford working packages of the EU Knowledge Alliance; and lecturing and mentoring our graduate students in Europe.
