First things first. Who are we, and what do we do? The short video below (in English) answers these questions in a nutshell.
WHAT WE DO TO SUPPORT ENTREPRENEURSHIP:
In summary, we are an educational entitity whithin Friesland College, and we focus on coaching students in Entrepreneurial Skills and Entrepreneurship. Examples of what we do:
- Electives: we offer electives that help students develop entrepreneurial skills and or/start and run their own business.
- Workshops: in cooperation with Inqubator (a start-up facilitator) we give free entrepreneurship related workshops bi-weekly. We target our own students and other interested parties.
- Events: we organize/support events around entrepreneurhsip. We do this with various goals.
- Projects: in a collaborative process with local, regional, and international partners we set up projects with entrepreneurship and/or skill development as core themes.
Why we do it
We are constantly finding new opportunties, and to do that that meaningfully we look for inspiration in our own region, country, and abroad. Our motives are simple. We believe great experiences can be organized for students if we connect with the right partners from different countries. Also, by exchanging knowledge with partners abroad, we can futher professionalize each others education, and create new inter-educational business opportunities.
Who do we want to work with?
Partners who share our vision. We believe in a “hands on” V.E.T. education. That means, learning by doing, first and foremost. That also means challenging traditional learning paradigms in which learning always starts with a book or a fully worked out plan. If you are a forward thinking, transparent, and ambitious school or business.. And you want to create opportunities for students in which they get to work, meet new people, grow their entrepreneurial skills, or even start (practcing) a new business.. Then we want to work with you.
Examples of international activities:
Social Entreprenruial Behaviour (SEB)
We offer various electives, including Entrepreneurial Behaviour (SEB) in English. SEB focuses on giving participants both insight and practice with processes and skills that are fundamental to being an entrepreneurial individual. This elective is offered in both Dutch and English. The English version is not a walk in the park as it adds sustainability and the English language as core processes. But as challenging as it is, the yields are high too. And, having an elective in English also gives us the opportunity to receive international students and give them valuable experiences at our school.
M-CAST (Malta) & Friese Poort: entrepreneurial behaviour exchange.
Leeuwarden and Valletta are Culture Capitals of Europe in 2018. We took this opportunity to bundle our strenghts with MCAST and our regional partner ROC Friese Poort. There is a whole host of events organized between the schools and Entrepreneurs College is in on the deal. Currently we are running an exchange program about entrepreneurial behaviour between the schools. In the future, specific entrepreneurship projects with Pop-Up startups are being considered. Interested? Send a mail to Stanko Zeljak , or connect through LinkedIn!
Mentor Program Projects
Our local partner, the Mentor Program Friesland, organizes various projects to enable and empower young people. The most recent project is called Claim Your Future. In April of 2018 our manager, Sonja Dijkstra is joining the Project Briefing in Lissabon. In September 2018 and onwards in 2019/20 we will start actively partnering with Claim Your Future by integrating some of its core activities into our curriculum.