Background
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.
Success to date
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.
Entrepreneurship module
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.
