EnterpriseTECH UG

EnterpriseTECH Undergraduate (UG) offers a real-world learning experience at the interface of education and the startup world. We aim to inspire students to explore their own entrepreneurial potential, whether for personal development or to help round-off employability skills.

It runs during Lent Term for up to 60 undergraduates as an assessed (borrowed) module for students from these participating departments and courses:

• Department of Physics – Part III (application deadline: 30 October)
• Department of Chemical Engineering – Part IIB (application deadline: 30 October)
• Modern & Medieval Languages – Part II (application deadline: 30 July)
• Biomedical & Biological Sciences – Part II (application deadline: 30 July)

The programme provides a foundational education on innovative and entrepreneurial practices. You will have many opportunities to develop valuable subject-related skills with our blend of intensive lectures and workshops plus practical application to a project. The projects come from the Cambridge Cluster with an emphasis on the physical, life and medical sciences as well as engineering and technology. The challenge for mixed-discipline student teams is to determine whether this new technology has commercial potential and, if so, what the route to market looks like.

At the heart of EnterpriseTECH is effective teamwork. It is demanding and practical where personal motivation is a major contributor to each team’s success. You will be put into mixed-discipline teams with students from other departments and assigned to a project. It is a popular programme and places are limited.

You will learn about:

• ideas and opportunities – learning how to spot opportunities, developing new ways to feed creativity and vision, learning how to value ideas, approaches for ethical and sustainable thinking
• resources – understanding how to mobilise resources and others around you, financial and economic literacy, self-awareness and self-efficacy, motivation and perseverance
• action – experiential learning, working with others, planning and management, leadership development, coping with ambiguity, uncertainty and risk.

You can read more about the past projects, lectures and supervisions in the programme overview and see photographs in our gallery.

Assessment

By the end of the programme, which concludes with Pitch Night, your team will have tackled three assessments and you will have written up a short individual task.

Teams receive detailed written feedback from their inventors, programme supervisors and assessors. Formal marks for each individual student are returned directly to home departments. On successful completion of the programme you can receive a Certificate of Completion.

COVID-19

Ensuring student wellbeing and complying with recommended physical distancing measures is a priority for us. We will adhere to the University of Cambridge’s policies. However, we hope to run as much of EnterpriseTECH as possible in its usual in-person form. There are many benefits to small group interactions.

Fees and funding 2020-21

For undergraduate students from participating departments:

• No fee.
• No deposit.

There are 60 places in total (approximately 15 per department).

“

EnterpriseTECH was without doubt one of the most diverse and interesting modules I’ve taken over the course of my Cambridge degree. While the MML Tripos has provided me with wonderful opportunities to learn languages, travel and study different cultures, I found myself wanting for an academic module that would provide me with more vocation skills that could be used in a professional setting and bolster my CV. If there was some initial apprehension going into EnterpriseTECH, this quickly dissipated and the programme was very well-organised, the lectures were insightful, and we had access to countless resources provided by Cambridge Judge Business School. As an MML student, the novelty of the programme was what struck me most of all: the content is unlike anything covered in a languages degree, the projects are team-based and the means of assessment (video, report and pitch) are unique. Being part of both CJBS and Cambridge tech startup ecosystem allowed me to meet so many different people and has provided me with a fantastic network of contacts going forward; while the skills I’ve gained from EnterpriseTECH—commercial acumen, presenting skills and more—will be invaluable in my career. ”

Rafael Bertoli-Mitchell, Modern and Medieval Languages, EnterpriseTECH UG 2020

“

EnterpriseTECH has been a fantastic opportunity to delve into how scientific ideas can be applied in the real world. Before doing the programme, I knew next to nothing about the commercialisation process, but having done EnterpriseTECH I would now feel reasonably confident in setting up a company. It has been the most useful programme of my entire time at Cambridge and will be enormously useful in my career. In addition to the skills gained, the programme had introduced me to a very useful network of people for my future career. A very enjoyable programme. ”

Will Drake, Department of Physics, EnterpriseTECH 2019