COACHING & FACILITATING YOUNG ENTREPRENEURS FROM THE PERSPECTIVES OF A COACH, AN EDUCATION MANAGER AND A JURY MEMBER – THE CASE STUDY OF THE CLIMATE-KIC JOURNEY PROGRAMME

The objective of the article is to share the experience of a coach, education manager and jury member during the intensive summer school “The Journey”, indicate good practices, provide some recommendations for other summer schools and contribute to the research on experiential/action learning and cohort based learning.

Authors of the article, who were engaged in the international summer school “The Journey”, wish to present their practical experiences from it. The succession of ‘the Journey’ schools were organised under the umbrella of the European Institute for Innovation and Technology (EIT) by the education pillar of Climate–Knowledge and Innovation Community (Climate-KIC), led by the Imperial College London – London co-location centre (CLC). “The Journey” 6 2014 ran with the co-operation of the University of Warwick and the West Midlands RIC, the Technical University of Berlin and the EIT+, as well as the Centre for Science and Education of WUELS, Wroclaw, Poland.

“The Journey” summer school has been organised since 2010. It gathers top-talented Masters and Doctoral students from all-over the world who are interested in climate-change issues and have an entrepreneurial spirit. The participation of the students is fully funded. The school takes place at some top European universities, involving professionals from various disciplines, and offering support for individual and teamwork development.

The primary aim of all “The Journey” summer schools is to provide the students with a practical support to extend and deepen their knowledge and interests in climate change issues, and to lead those interests towards solid entrepreneurial ideas and professional business plans. In particular, students are mentored in a process of experiential action learning with the objective of producing innovative, team-based, climate-related business start-up ideas.

A multi-disciplinary nature of the students and the mentors as well as the different locational contexts is designed to provide a rich variety of perspectives to act as a catalyst for divergent and creative thinking. It was anticipated that this would produce a range of innovative and commercially viable business propositions.