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.
Programme dates for 2020-21
| Thursday 21 January | Launch Night | (evening) |
|---|---|---|
| Mondays and Thursdays, 25 January - 19 February | Lectures and workshops | 16:00-18:00 |
| Thursday 21 January - Friday 15 March | Teamwork and research spell | |
| Thursday 11 March | Pitch Night | (evening) |
| Monday 15 March | Assignment deadline | 23:59 |
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.
| Team commercial feasibility report (3000 words) | 50% |
|---|---|
| Team video infomercial (two minutes) | 10% |
| Team pitch to a live audience | 15% |
| Individual assessment | 25% |
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 STAR 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).
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. ”
