Global SEE—An Entrepreneurship Educator Symposium for Universities

• Case method teaching
• Managing classroom challenges
• Curriculum and course design
• Experiential and action-learning pedagogies
• Immersion-based teaching
• Assessment and assurance of learning

• Entrepreneurial Thought & Action®
• Entrepreneurial identity
• Idea generation
• Design thinking
• Market tests and business models
• Building entrepreneurial teams
• Entrepreneurial finance

The opening session provides a framework for developing an entrepreneurial approach toward teaching, as well as context for the SEE program and the program objectives.

Participants will be introduced to Babson’s strategic and unifying framework for entrepreneurship of all kinds—Entrepreneurial Thought & Action (ET&A™). We will emphasize entrepreneurship as a way of thinking and acting that goes beyond the traditional discipline boundaries as we know them today. ET&A is an action-oriented method for navigating environments that are increasingly uncertain and unknown. Embedded within the ET&A methodology is a set of five “practices” of entrepreneurship education that students must develop over time to help them think and act more entrepreneurially—to create, find, and act on opportunities.

How can we teach our students to create or identify new opportunities? Participants will be led through an exercise that allows them to practice one of the core tenets of design thinking—need finding—using a design challenge related to entrepreneurship education and the students we teach today. Participants will prepare to work in teams under purposeful time constraints to develop new ideas that will enhance the entrepreneurship education experience of students today.

This session explores launching a venture as an iterative process. This approach combines both the creation and prediction aspects of ET&A to identify low-cost means of testing opportunities, learning from the test, and then reshaping the opportunity to take the next, larger test.

Successful entrepreneurs understand their customers. Participants will work with tools that help our students gain a greater understanding of their customers. This session will simulate the development of a persona and journey map and help build understanding of how students can gather evidence to gain deeper insight into their customers.

Participants will be exposed to the Business Model Canvas to experience how it can be applied to help shape, design, and redesign entrepreneurial ventures. We will use a fun exercise to help participants (and their students!) better understand the segments of the canvas and the recommended sequencing of action when using the canvas.

Participants will review some basic principles of designing engaging experiential exercises for students. A simple “game jam” will allow participants to create new exercises to use in their entrepreneurship courses and activities.

Effective entrepreneurs enroll others in their vision to build a high-performing team. This session will combine the latest thinking on how to build support for a nascent venture by capturing interest and action from individuals and organizations outside the boundaries of the fledgling organization. This session will include several exercises that participants can use to teach networking and “enrolling” skills to students who wish to launch their startups.

Based upon the learning that entrepreneurs glean from early customer interactions, they can explore customer interest and better understand product development and features by rapid prototyping. In this session, participants will develop a low-fidelity prototype and assess how it can be used to further develop a business.

The ability to craft an effective venture narrative and an engaging presentation can make a profound difference on which ventures receive investor attention and which get passed over in the funding process. In this session, participants will learn how to coach entrepreneurs preparing to pitch. This includes Babson’s best practices for pitch coaching, what to look for when critiquing pitches, and recommendations around pitch story structure and pitch delivery.

Participants work in teams to continue their work of co-creating new ideas to enhance entrepreneurship education.

Pursuing business opportunities often requires outside financing. This session looks at the equity food chain and identifies stage-appropriate financing sources. Participants will examine how to put a valuation on a venture and how to approach and negotiate with investors.

Groups will rocket pitch a new idea for enhancing entrepreneurship education that was developed during the week.