Cambridge’s Judge reaches out to aspiring entrepreneurs

Cambridge University’s Judge Business School is building on its strength in entrepreneurship to launch a one-year postgraduate diploma in the subject. The part-time programme will begin in September 2011, and will require participants to spend three weeks on the Judge campus during the year and complete 10 hours of online learning a week in addition.

The focus for each participant during the programme, will be the “enterprise project”, says Jo Mills, director of the programme. When each prospective participant interviews for the programme, they will have to bring with them the idea for the project they want to follow during the course.

The programme is aimed at would-be entrepreneurs, who want to commercialise an idea, serial entrepreneurs, who want to learn the academic theory behind building a successful company, or to intrapreneurs working for a large organisation. “We felt there there was a space for something like this,” says Ms Mills.

As well as the traditional academic teaching, Ms Mills will bring in practising entrepreneurs to give hands-on experience. One of those is Hermann Hauser, serial entrepreneur and co-founder of Amadeus Capital Partners, a venture capital company. “The main aim is to help people in their entrepreneurial thinking,” says Mr Hauser.

One of the questions he is often asked, he says, is whether entrepreneurs can be made. “It’s a bit like making a concert pianist,” he says. “If you’re tone deaf you’re never going to make it; but having a piano also helps.”

www.jbs.cam.ac.uk