Unleashing latent entrepreneurial skills

In the middle of a financial crisis there’s high graduate unemployment so maybe it’s a good idea for graduates of any discipline to find out more about how business works? They can do this through sponsored internships but in the podcast show I’ve just put together we hear about asking the interns to also follow a new online course during their internship to really get them noticing these entrepreneurial processes by completing tasks with fellow interns all over Europe.  And you could join them! The first pilot has just ended and we’ll be hearing from two interns who took the course and if you like what you hear and are planning to be an intern by April then why not apply to join the second pilot? The application form is at the Unikey website or you can contact me through the podcast Facebook page.

The project is called UniKey where we invite foreign interns to go absolutely entrepreneurial. The online UniKey course is aimed at foreign interns, who are based in small and medium sized organisations as well as social enterprises and the course is based on authentic entrepreneurial situations such as dealing with cultural differences, ethical dilemmas, planning strategies and spotting entrepreneurial opportunities. We hear from Nina Raiss, a German doing an internship in France, about why she agreed to do an additional Unikey online course on top of her internship.

And as if it wasn’t enough to be doing a course on top of an internship, we added a slight gaming element in the form of extra challenges which were not compulsory. But if you did do them, there was a chance of winning a trip to Brussels.

There are lots of other added touches to the UniKey course and one of them is the opportunity to meet with a different entrepreneur or expert in each of the seven modules and ask them questions. For example in the third module which looks at ethical dilemmas we meet Ilona Jehn who worked at Lufthansa Cargo.

So if you want to join the next course starting at the end of March then apply now! And full disclosure: I am a partner in the project which is why I know so much about it!