Entrepreneurship Development Programme

The Entrepreneurship Development Programme (EDP) is a week long intensive, executive educational course run by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's (MIT) Sloan School of Management.  and takes place onsite at MIT in Boston.

The course is aimed at the most ambitious global businesses with growth potential and aspirations. HIE annually sponsors six Highlands and Islands businesses to take part on the programme.

HIE has also sponsored staff to participate on the course in the past to develop the culture of entrepreneurial thinking within its own organisation.

Who is the course for?
The EDP is designed for aspiring entrepreneurs, finance executives, and other ambitious executives who would like to develop or strengthen a climate of entrepreneurship.

Teams of entrepreneurs are also encouraged to attend the program together with university staff and/or development professionals from the region.

Where are participants from?
In 2009 there were 140 participants from 27 countries attending and in 2010 there were 130 participants from 30 countries taking part.

How do I get on the course?
HIE sponsored places are awarded to Highlands and Islands businesses subject to a selection process against criteria based on business growth aspiration and global potential.

Companies are only encouraged to apply for a place on the course if they fit the following criteria:

  • Describe your business as ambitious
  • Articulate your company goals for next 12 to 36 months
  • Describe how EDP participation will help achieve the goals
  • Describe what makes you stand out as an entrepreneur
  • Are committed to improving long term customer relationships by enhancing the value delivered by the business
  • Are committed to enhancing the company's revenue and profit performance
  • Are interested in building a company that can successfully compete on the global stage
  • Have a highly ambitious business plan you would like to develop using the help and inspiration of world-class entrepreneurs
  • Be willing to share your experience with other aspiring Highlands and Islands entrepreneurs
  • Are available on the dates of the course

How do I apply?
The competition for applications for HIE sponsored places on EDP 2011 is now open.  To apply click here.

What format does the course take?
The course is taught over an extremely intensive week. Through lectures by senior MIT faculty, visits to high-tech start-ups, and live case studies with successful entrepreneurs, participants will be exposed to the content, context, and contacts that enable entrepreneurs to design and launch successful new ventures based on innovative technologies. Specially designed team projects give participants hands-on, practical experience developing a business plan, while networking events bring participants together with members of MIT's entrepreneurial community.

You can view an example course programme schedule here.

Are there any networking opportunities?
While Highlands and Islands businesses are in Boston participating on the course, typically HIE will arrange a series of wrap around meetings, networking events and introductions with contacts from the wider MIT and Boston community.  These can include Scottish Development International, GlobalScots, Saltire Fellows and MIT Research Fellows in order to allow our businesses to gain most value from the visit to North America and expend their network.

How much will it cost?
The EDP course fee is normally $8800 per person (£5711 as at 1 September 2010). Due to HIE's relationship with MIT, membership of the MIT Industrial Liaison Programme (ILP) and network of contacts in the MIT community, HIE are able to negotiate a lower rate for the participating Highlands and Islands participants. In order to comply with State Aid rules, HIE must charge participating businesses 30% of the total cost of attending the programme.  The cost to participants will be approx £2140 per person. This fee also includes travel and accommodation costs for the 7-10 day visit and attendance at any other networking events built in and around participation on the programme.

How do I pay?
The participation fee will be invoiced to participants on return from the course in February 2011.

What are the benefits to participating businesses?

  • Create, identify, and evaluate new venture opportunities
  • Interpret customer needs and quantify the value proposition
  • Navigate the venture capital investment process
  • Understand how the process of starting new ventures may vary geographically and culturally
  • Obtain critical feedback on business plans
  • Start and build a successful technology-based company
  • Develop the skill and drive needed to create totally new industries
  • Leverage new science and technologies from corporate or university laboratories
  • Enhance and expand their networks

What are the signs of success?
Ultimately HIE believe the partnership with MIT will make a significant impact on GVA.  Signs of success include businesses:

  • operating on a global scale
  • becoming larger in scale and size
  • pro-actively accessing and attracting investment in to the region
  • collaborating on a business to business international basis
  • increasingly involved in international programmes e.g. Global Scot, Saltire Fellows
  • engaging in new models for collaboration with academia
  • increasing the levels of research income in to the region
  • increasing the levels of commercialisation activity
  • increasing numbers of highly skilled migrants moving in to the region

How have previous participants benefited from attendance?
Feedback from businesses who have already participated on a MIT course includes:

  • A feeling that MIT courses are more rewarding
  • Evidence that those participating on visit programme built links with other local businesses (several businesses felt that they now have a group "on whom they could call" if they needed advice or to talk through new ideas).
  • An enhanced relationship between businesses and HIE
  • an increase in scope for ongoing or new joint project work.
  • an appreciation for the opportunity to meet leading academics, noting that having open conversations with them was valuable.  And, being able to take a completely different perspective on the challenges facing rural areas by looking at advanced thinking on urban solutions; and the openness and "can-do" approach of MIT staff, researchers and students.
  • a previous EDP participant reported that the course had helped bring forward business expansion by two years.
  • 1/3 of businesses attending the course have secured additional external funding in order to expand.
  • 1/4 of businesses have created joint ventures in the USA after EDP attendance.
  • 3 businesses jointly created a new Highland based business which now employs six staff and has a turnover of £600,000 p.a. with future projections substantially higher.
  • multiple businesses reported a shift towards a focus on winning business from larger companies.

Who will be leading the course?

Deborah Ancona, Seley Distinguished Professor of Management, is faculty director of the MIT Leadership Center. She is engaged in research examining core leadership capabilities. Her work includes the design and creation of leadership courses and workshops, a leadership model, and a 360-degree survey instrument.

Howard Anderson, founder of The Yankee Group and Co-Founder of Battery Venture Capital, teaches New Enterprises, Companies at the Crossroads, Managing in Adversity, and High Technology Sales and Sales Management. He has helped to create dozens of great companies including A123 Systems Inc., a spinoff from MIT.

William Aulet, Senior Lecturer, MIT Sloan School of Management, and Managing Director, MIT Entrepreneurship Center, is a serial entrepreneur who has run three companies, directly created hundreds of millions of dollars in market value, raised more than $100 million in funding for his companies, produced award-winning products, and helped develop numerous business leaders in his 25-year business career.

Steven D. Eppinger, General Motors Leaders for Global Operations Chair and Professor of Management Science at the MIT Sloan School of Management, has a joint appointment in MIT's Engineering Systems Division. His research creates new approaches to improve complex product development processes. This work has been applied primarily in the automotive, electronics, aerospace, and equipment industries. Co-author of Product Design and Development, the primary text for this course, Eppinger lectures regularly for international corporations and in executive education programs and has consulted for or conducted research with more than fifty organizations. He has worked as a manufacturing engineer, product designer, and consultant in both prototype and production operations.

Scott Keating is a Senior Lecturer in Economics, Finance, & Accounting at the MIT Sloan School of Management. His research focuses on understanding the internal workings of large and complex organizations. Keating is specifically interested in the role of internal accounting practices - such as accounting based performance measurement and compensation programs, transfer pricing policies, costing systems, and cost allocation practices - in regulating organizational activities. He teaches an undergraduate course in financial accounting and a second-year MBA elective in managerial accounting.

Richard Locke, the Alvin J. Siteman Professor of Entrepreneurship and Political Science, and Director of the MIT Italy Program, studies economic adjustment and development, comparative labor relations and political economy. His current work examines cooperative patterns of economic development in Eastern Germany, Southern Italy, and Northeast Brazil.

Matthew Marx, is Assistant Professor of Technological Innovation, Entrepreneurship, and Strategic Management at MIT Sloan. His current research focuses on the implications of employee non-compete agreements, which are ostensibly used to protect trade secrets but may also impact interorganizational and cross-regional mobility, utilization of expertise, and the ability of small companies to attract talent.

Alan MacCormack, is a visiting Associate Professor at the MIT Sloan School of Management. His research examines the management of innovation and new product development in high-technology industries, with a particular focus on the software sector.

Fiona Murray, Senior Sarofim Family Career Development Professor and Associate Professor, Management of Technological Innovation and Entrepreneurship, studies and teaches innovation and entrepreneurship including the campus-wide iTeams course developing "go-to-market" strategies for breakthrough innovations developed in MIT labs.

Michael Schrage is the senior advisor to MIT's Security Studies Program, and a visiting professor at Sweden's Royal Institute of Technology. He explores the behavioral economics of models, prototypes, and simulations in shaping innovation investment in the enterprise. His current research focuses on identifying emergent "perverse incentives" as organizations seek to transform increased "technical capacity" into greater organizational capability.

Duncan Simester, Associate Professor of Management Science, investigates marketing problems. His work on retail pricing investigates how customers form inferences from competitive prices from common marketing cues such as sale signs, price endings, installment billing offers and credit card logos.

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