The Entrepreneurship seminar is a seminar for researchers focusing on start-up creation. It aims at developing entrepreneurial mindsets and understanding of business environment. The participants are given a few hours of courses on the basics of a private company by various experts. Then they go through a team exercise of creation of a virtual start-up, supported by coachers. The participants present their business idea to an investors committee and receive valuable feedback afterwards. The seminar main objective is to motivate researchers to get involved in the company creation. www.FITT-for-Innovation.eu

1. Entrepreneurship Seminar
FITT
– Fostering Interregional Exchange in ICT Technology Transfer –
www.FITT-for-Innovation.eu
Except where otherwise noted, this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.

2. What is IT-Translation Entrepreneurship
Seminar?
 3-days residential interactive seminar about company creation
 role-playing (participants develop and present their project)
 coaching
 teaching (IT-Translation staff & invited experts)
 Starter for researchers - entrepreneurs
 realistic exercise of management of company creation & growth
 opportunity to express one’s ideas and to receive feedback
 essential information, tools and contacts provided
 Goal: convince the “would – be” entrepreneurs
 changing mindsets

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encouraging to enter the business environment
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3. Entrepreneurship Seminar in Practice
 Internal event organised 3 - 4 times a year for INRIA staff, called BarCamp
To built awareness of all aspects of company creation: development of the project, team
construction, administrative steps, financial matters, challenges and possible obstacles
 The “role-playing” concept
Focused more on “learning by experiencing” than on technical issues
 The “BarCamp” concept
Three days in residence, full-time interaction between participants, coachers and experts
 The program is evolving within a fixed framework
The lectures and case studies are followed by working sessions with coachers and
group work inside of the teams; two assessment sessions during the event
 IT-Translation provides the competent people
The specialised entity supporting start-up projects provides experienced coachers and
experts from its staff and numerous contacts among business people, consultants and
investors
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4. Program scheme
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5. The rules of the game
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6. When?
Timing
 First Entrepreneurship Seminar organised in January 2008
 The concept has been tested during 2008: 4 “regular” seminars and 2
“light” versions for students
 The frequency is 3 - 4 times per year; it will increase after opening the
seminars to participants from other organisations
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7. Who?
 Stakeholders
 The event: 16 trainees, 3 full-time trainers and 8 experts for projects
assessment (jury) and coaching
 To launch a seminar: one person as organizer is enough, as the scheme is well
described
 To carry out the seminar: minimum 2 coaches, 3 is optimal to better manage the
coaching sessions
 Participants
 Profile: open, curious, motivated to gain new experience, with research
background, concerned and close to start-up projects, ready to work intensively
during 3 days; age and experience do not play a role
 Selection: INRIA members, priority to those who already have a start-up project
at short or medium term; those who want to discover are welcomed if places are
available; their participation boosts the group dynamics
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8. Where?
Location
 Near Paris, Vallée de Chevreuse
 Organised at the national level, involving INRIA’s headquarters (Transfer
and Innovation Department, general management) and IT-Translation, as
well as regional TT officers
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9. Pros and Cons
PROs CONs
 Role playing and case solving with presence
of high level experts renowned in Paris
region; exchange between various actors is  Some elements are necessary to succeed:
easy strong and experienced organisation team,
 Learning by experience during the seminar, homogeneity of culture, quality of experts,
even if the problems to solve are fictive construction of trainees group; if one or
more of them are missing or weak, the risk
 No ‘theoretical’ lectures, but overview of of failure is high
main business concepts and lessons learned
 It is difficult to try similar approach without
 Visible impact on motivation of participants the specific know-how (IT-Translation can be
with “entrepreneurship spirit”, which get contacted for help)
stimulated by role-playing experience
 Innovative concept; residential seminar
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10. Why ? (1/2)
 Entrepreneurship Seminar has been developed in the
context of professionalization of technology transfer
via start-up creation
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 It gives the taste of entrepreneurship to people coming from research environment and
willing to enter the start-up experience: changes the way of thinking, introduces to
business reality, codes etc.
 It was created for the people “half in research, half in start-up”; it has
strong relation to both cultures and gives a close insight into
innovation ecosystem: incubators, VCs, public funding institutions, etc.
Source: Microsoft Office Images Clipart
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11. Why ? (2/2)
 Impact:
 Participants express higher motivation to go into start-up
 The future entrepreneur can realise the challenges he will have to face; this
will help him to anticipate the problems and to take decisions
 Examples of participants feedback:
 “Yesterday I believed that technology was doing all by itself; I started to
create a company and now I change the way I used to think about its
development.”
 “I understood that if I didn’t go into the start-up, being the technology
creator, the company would have no chances to succeed.”
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12. Outcome
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13. Entrepreneurship Seminar tested by MFG
Objective:
 To test the practice “Entrepreneurship Seminar” and offer regional researchers and
future entrepreneurs a possibility to fine-tune their business ideas
Implementation:
 The test was implemented within MFG’s training programme for external
stakeholders (MFG Akademie)
 A two day seminar was organised for 10 researchers and prospective entrepreneurs
focusing on fine-tuning their business models
 To ensure practical relevance (focus on real project and business ideas) and
generate the most possible benefit, participants had to apply to the seminar by an
outline (pitch) of their business idea
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14. Lessons Learned by MFG
Lessons Learned:
 The FITT Entrepreneurship Seminar fosters entrepreneurial culture in a strong way:
researchers and young entrepreneurs are confronted with the business environment
and encouraged to take up the entrepreneurship challenge
 The seminar received a very good feedback by the 10 participants
 The agenda was well-balanced between role-playing, best-practices (presented by 4
successful entrepreneurs), coaching and teaching sessions (moderated by a business
model expert)
 «The FITT Entrepreneurship Seminar was a very important step for the development of
our company chocoBRAIN. The seminar supported founders and young start-ups with a
perfect mixture of know-how, experience and practice, presented in a very interactive
way. During the two-day seminar, we’ve received valuable feedback and e.g. learned
that we need to focus more on our core business sharpening our business model.
Therefore, the feedback from the FITT seminar was extremely useful to define our best
positioning in the market. I can definitely recommend it to founders on their way from
idea to market! » (Jens Kramer, CEO chocoBRAIN)
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15. Lessons Learned
 The main part of success comes from unique competencies and know-
how: training mode, relations with trainees, expert’s quality are
determinant
 The scheme of Entrepreneurship Seminar is well funded, but still
evolving, taking into account new ideas and improvements
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16. Suggested Readings
 Link to bibliography:
Boosting the knowledge valorization process: putting plans into action. - Direct your
university towards entrepreneurship, PriceWaterhouseCoopers and Technopartner 2006
Creating University Spin-Offs : A Science-Based Design Perspective; Elco Van Burg,
Georges L. Romme, Victor A. Gilsing, Isabelle M.M. J. Reymen, Product Development &
Management Association 2008
 Link to code book:
Creativity, Start-up, University Spinoffs, Coaching, Entrepreneur, Entrepreneurship
 Link to related websites:
www.it-translation.fr
www.inria.fr/valorisation/index.fr
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