I often wish that I could forget about the usual curricular restraints, as is happening at Lehigh University, and shift my role from being an instructor to being a creativity coach. But that’s not going to happen anytime soon.
In the meantime, I’m incorporating several innovations into my fall courses to better model the work environments that students will encounter after they leave college. Many of these involve more authentic assignments in which students will need to make something that has value to people outside the classroom. In other words, students will find themselves in an atmosphere that is more entrepreneurial than they are probably used to.
I also keep my eyes open for opportunities outside of the university where students can independently engage in this kind of learning. Here is one opportunity; you might have students interested in participating:
In the spirit of entrepreneurship and out of a genuine desire to bring about positive change in Egypt, EgyptNEGMA aims to provide you with a platform to transform ideas into reality. If you are passionate and have a good entrepreneurial idea, then we invite you to apply to participate in EgyptNEGMA’s third annual competition, InspireEgypt, which will take place at MIT on October 25-26, 2014. Over the course of two days, you will have the opportunity to showcase and market your idea to like-minded entrepreneurs, investors, business professors, and professionals who can help cultivate your idea to achieve sustainable impact.
The first day will include a five hour long project fair, where you will compete against other projects. Conference attendees will vote to select three ideas to use as case studies in the NEGMA Boot Camp Program on the second day of the conference. The NEGMA Boot Camp Program is a full day of back-to-back workshops and tailored lectures taught by MIT Sloan and Harvard Business School professors. They will provide you with the business acumen and skills needed to turn your idea into an enterprise. After that, your idea will be passed on to our incubator and accelerator partners in the U.S. and in Egypt.
The application process:
Applications will be reviewed on a rolling basis between now and August 15, 2014. Up to 50 applications will be selected and will be notified to compete in the InspireEgypt poster fair session at MIT. For more information and to submit your idea go to http://egyptnegma.org/inspire.