Cambridge Judge Business School’s Entrepreneurship Centre Is Shaping The Next Generation Of Entrepreneurs

Business schools all around the world are the perfect catalysts for budding entrepreneurs to learn and hone their skills required to make it in the cut-throat world of business. 

As a number of business schools focus on building entrepreneurial skills of their MBA candidates, Cambridge Judge Business School is going one step ahead through its Entrepreneurship Centre by aiming to inspire, enable and research entrepreneurship. 

The Entrepreneurship Centre

Established in 2015 as part of Cambridge Judge Business School’s 25th anniversary celebrations, the Entrepreneurship Centre is the go-to organisation for any budding entrepreneurs at the school. Encompassing the full entrepreneurial journey, from empowering aspiring entrepreneurs through the creation and development of early-stage ventures, all the way to small and medium size enterprise growth, the Centre supports the entrepreneurial talent and their development at the University of Cambridge. The Centre also focuses on the commercialisation of new ideas, providing critical resources for entrepreneurs, mentors and investors, establishing the University of Cambridge as a “global knowledge locus for entrepreneurship” and enhancing the Cambridge entrepreneurial ecosystem through the development of management capacity. 

The Centre is headed by Professor Stelios Kavadias and Bruno Cotta, who are the academic and executive directors at the organisation respectively. Professor Kavadias is also the Margaret Thatcher Professor of Enterprise Studies in Innovation & Growth, while Bruno Cotta has had more than 20 years of leadership and management experience working with public, private and third sector organisations. The core team also consists of academic co-directors Dr. Matthew Grimes, who’s a Reader in Organisational Theory & Information Systems and Dr. Jeremy Hutchison-Krupat, who’s a Senior Lecturer in Innovation & Operations Management and Academic Director of the Master of Studies in Entrepreneurship Programme. 

The Centre also offers a number of programmes to its members, such as:

• Masters in Studies in Entrepreneurship – a two-year programme designed for early-stage entrepreneurs.
• Enterprise Tuesday – a series of free evening lectures and networking sessions which aims to introduce participants to the world of business.
• Ignite – An intensive one-week training programme for aspiring entrepreneurs and corporate innovators to trial and prepare business ideas for the commercial environment.
• EnterpriseWOMEN – A programme held on two Saturdays for women of all backgrounds and disciplines aiming to become the next generation of female entrepreneurs. 
• EnterpriseTECH – A program that offers offers students and researchers across the University of Cambridge the opportunity to learn how to take real-world novel technologies to market.
  
  among many more.

The Entrepreneurial Centre at Cambridge Judge Business School has already given a platform to a number of budding entrepreneurs, who through their startups are looking to make a positive change around the world. Below we are featuring three impactful startups. 

ET-Traps – Dr. Arjun Jain (Founder)
ET-Traps is a startup focused on focuses on sequestering pathologically elevated levels of Endothelin-1 (ET-1) in different diseases. While pursuing his PhD in Reproductive Biochemistry at the University of Cambridge in 2008, Arjun was working on a molecule called endothelin(ET)-1, which he realised was elevated in different diseases, including diabetes, different cancers, cardiovascular diseases and neurodegenerative disorders. Based on his findings, he began working on a potential therapeutic that could isolate and bind the increased levels of ET-1. 

Founded in 2015 after Arjun attended the Biotech Startup Weekend organised by the Entrepreneurship Centre to pitch his business idea, ET-Traps joined the Accelerate Cambridge programme at the Entrepreneurship Centre, which provides mentoring and other help to startup ventures in April that year. The startup was then able to secure Angel investment for the further development of ET-Traps.

unpckd – Tracey Banks (Founder)
unpackd is an online shop where customers can order refills of dry food, liquids and other household products for delivery to their home at a convenient time. As sustainability and waste reduction gathers more speed, Tracey Banks decided to quit her stable tech programming job in London to start unpckd in July 2018. unpckd is now supported by the Cambridge Social Ventures programme at Cambridge Judge Business School after Tracey enrolled in the program in September 2018.

Outfield Technologies – Oli Hilbourne & Jim McDougall (Co-founders)
Outfield Technologies is a startup dedicated to provide a better estimate of crop yield in September or October through the use of drone technology, 3D computer imagery and artificial intelligence. Founded in 2016, Outfield is currently on the Accelerate Cambridge mentoring programme run by the Entrepreneurship Centre at Cambridge Judge Business School. The company has won a grant of £95,000 from the government agency Innovate UK.