In February 2002, Scottish Enterprise awarded the University of
Edinburgh (UoE) a grant of £6 million to develop a collaborative
research and commercialisation programme with Stanford University,
California.
This five year initiative, called the
Edinburgh-Stanford Link
, aims to
establish a stream of highly skilled, commercially-aware graduates
with excellent communication skills and cutting-edge training in the
latest technology, while at the same time, establishing Scotland's
reputation as a country that encourages innovation,
commercialisation and entrepreneurship.
The Link opened to industry in October 2003 with a conference
attended by Scotland's Deputy First Minster and Minister for
Enterprise and Lifelong Learning, and featuring among others, Greg
Papadopoulos, CTO of Sun Microsystems.
The Link has since developed relationships with dozens of companies,
from innovative pre-revenue start-ups to global corporations headquartered
in the USA and Japan. We have agreed several research projects with
leading Scottish companies and signed a number of licence agreements,
as well as generating annual consulting revenues in excess of six figures.
Two Link-funded students have also launched one start-up company. This success
has been extensively covered by every major national and international
newspaper, including the Sun, Herald, Times, Financial Times, Metro and
BBC, as well as by a variety of radio stations and online magazines.
As part of the Link's efforts to create a more entrepreneurial culture with
the UoE, we decided to launch a specialised module in Hi-Tech Entrepreneurship,
starting September 2004.
The module is inspired by the
Stanford Technology Ventures Programme
and will be taught through a series of interactive workshops on Wednesday afternoons
for 10 weeks each year, using world-class speakers. The course will teach real
hands-on skills, with real entrepreneurs as guest facilitators, and classes will
be small and highly interactive.
In addition to invited speakers, students will have access to an unrivalled range
of online and downloadable resources. In time we expect to roll-out these resources
to students studying other science-based topics.
We look forward to helping both students and staff explore the exciting world
of hi-tech entrepreneurship.
