Please note that applications for the Entrepreneurship Development Program 2012 have now closed.
The Entrepreneurship Development Program (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, Scottish Enterprise and Informatics Ventures are sponsoring twelve places on EDP 2012 for six businesses from the Highlands and Islands and six businesses from the Scottish Enterprise area.
About the sponsred places:
Nine sponsored places (70% funded) have been offered to companies from across Scotland who met the following criteria:
- Are an established company over three years old
- Have a turnover of £50,000 or more
- Are account managed by HIE or SE
- Have attended at least one Entrepreneurs Growth Programme workshop or Informatics Ventures MIT workshop in Scotland*
- Can demonstrate ambition for growth of the company
- Can articulate the business goals for the next 12-36 months and how EDP will help achieve these goals
- Can demonstrate the entrepreneurial potential of the individual
- Willing to share your experience with other aspiring Scottish entrepreneurs
- Are available to travel from 18th - 29th January 2012
Three sponsored places (100% funded) have been offered to companies from across Scotland who meet the following criteria:
- Are less than three years since registration
- Are pre-revenue or have a revenue of less than £50,000 to date
- Are at seed stage investment or earlier
- Have attended at least one Entrepreneurs Growth Programme workshop or Informatics Ventures MIT workshop in Scotland*
- Can demonstrate ambition for growth of the company
- Can articulate the business goals for the next 12-36 months and how EDP will help achieve these goals
- Can demonstrate the entrepreneurial potential of the individual
- Willing to share your experience with other aspiring Scottish entrepreneurs
- Are available to travel from 18th - 29th January 2012
*The requirement to have attended an EGP workshop or Informatics Ventures MIT workshop was a mandatory part of the application process.
Key dates for EDP 2012:
- Pre-EDP Meeting in Inverness: Tuesday 18th October 2011
- EDP 2012 course: 22nd-27th January 2012
- Businesses must be available: 18th-29th January 2012
Frequently asked questions:
Who is the course for?
The EDP is designed for CEOs, managing directors, senior managers with strategic responsibility, finance executives, and other ambitious executives who would like to develop or strengthen a climate of entrepreneurship within their organisation and develop a strategy for growth.
Teams of entrepreneurs are also encouraged to attend the programme 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?
Highlands and Islands Enterprise, Scottish Enterprise and Informatics Ventures sponsored places are awarded to Scottish 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:
- Are account managed by either Highlands and Islands Enterprise or Scottish Enterprise (or are an early stage spin out or start up at seed stage funding or earlier, pre-revenue or with revenue less than £50,000 and with scalable potential)
- Have attended at least one Entrepreneurs Growth Programme workshop or Informatics Ventures MIT workshop in Scotland
- Describe your business as ambitious
- Can articulate your company goals for the next 12 to 36 months
- Describe how EDP participation will help achieve these goals
- Describe what makes you stand out as an entrepreneur
- 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 Scottish entrepreneurs
- Are available to travel from 18th - 29th January 2012
How do I apply?
The competition for applications for sponsored places on EDP 2012 will open on 12th August 2011 via the link at the top of this page.
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 the group of Scottish 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 arranged in partnership with the MIT Industrial Liaison programme (ILP). These can include Scottish Development International, GlobalScots, Saltire Fellows, MIT faculty members from across the campus and MIT students and researchers in order to allow our businesses to gain most value from the visit to North America and expand their network.
How much will it cost?
The total value of the prize is approx £7700. The EDP course fee is normally $9500 per person (£5950 as at 12 August 2011). Due to HIE's strategic relationship with MIT and membership of the MIT Industrial Liaison Program (ILP), HIE are able to negotiate a lower rate for the participating Scottish businesses. In order to comply with competition rules, HIE and SE must charge participating businesses 30% of the total cost of attending the programme. The cost to participants will be approx £2300 per person. This fee also includes travel and accommodation costs for the 10 day visit and attendance at any other networking events built in and around participation on the programme. The actual subsidy may hve to be reduced in order to stay within State Aid Regulations for large companies with over 250 employees or a turnover above £50M.
How do I pay?
The participation fee will be made clear to participants in advance of attendance of the programme then invoiced to participants on return from the course in February 2012.
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?
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 an EGP or EDP course includes:
- A feeling that courses delivered by MIT faculty members 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?
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.
