Creating an entrepreneurial ecology

Australia has a compelling need for a generation of entrepreneurs who will create the new businesses, wealth and the jobs to replace those currently being lost, and to provide a broader base to our economy as the mining boom wanes. 

Creating this generation of entrepreneurs has received a major boost with a $10 million gift to create the Wade Institute for Entrepreneurship. 

The Institute is to be based at Ormond College and will offer a brand-new and highly innovative one-year University of Melbourne Master of Entrepreneurship degree for no more than 60 students in a single cohort. 

It is intended that this practical degree will produce graduates who are ‘start-up ready’.

The new Master’s degree is the result of the collaboration between the Faculty of Business and Economics, the School of Engineering and Ormond College, and is an integral part of the University of Melbourne’s commitment to creating a vibrant entrepreneurial precinct.

Behind this substantial gift is the very successful, but low-profile, entrepreneur, Peter Wade. Originally from Geelong, Peter knows first-hand the changes sweeping though the Australian economy. He has watched the decline of manufacturing and heavy industry in and around his hometown and how Geelong has reinvented itself several times to meet the challenges it has faced.

“Traditional manufacturing is disappearing,” Peter has said. “Even service jobs, whether they are in call centres or law and accounting firms, are going offshore.

“Technology is disrupting ‘business-as-usual’ and even those who work for others will need to be more entrepreneurial and innovative to help create Australia’s future.

“We are a smart nation but still too few of our great ideas are generating the future of our economy.” 

Peter has been involved in supporting education for a while now and says he has enormous faith in the extraordinary talent of young Australians.

He is keen to see budding entrepreneurs equipped with the skills they need to take that talent and use it to create value, opportunities and jobs for Australia’s future.

It seems students are also very keen to be equipped with these skills. 

Professor Leisa Sargent, Head of the Department of Marketing in the Faculty of Business and Economics, and one of the leaders of this collaboration, observes that there is a very strong desire among young Australians to create their own businesses, with market research conducted by her department finding 55 per cent of university students have starting their own business as a career goal. She sees a distinct generational shift in what students want to do with their lives.

The Dean of Business and Economics, Paul Kofman, and the Dean of Engineering, Iven Mareels, who have been leading this work for the University, are both keen to emphasise how the new Master of Entrepreneurship will be tailored to what emerging entrepreneurs need in order to get going. 

Professor Mareels’ faculty runs the very successful Melbourne Accelerator Program and he says helping students to get real businesses going means educators have learned a lot about what students really need.

While the new Masters program will be very practical, facilitating students to create a pop-up business by mid-year and to pitch their start-up plan for real venture capital funds at the end of the course, it is also very rigorous. Both deans see this as vital, and key to Professor Kofman’s stated aim of dramatically increasing the likelihood of students being successful as entrepreneurs.

For the University of Melbourne, the Wade Institute and the new Master of Entrepreneurship degree are an integral part of its mission to create a leading entrepreneurial precinct. The University of Melbourne Vice-Chancellor, Glyn Davis, has observed that universities contribute to their societies in a range of important ways, and that as a world-leading research university, Melbourne recognises the centrality of translating discoveries and ideas into new products and services that will add value to Australia and the world.

Professor Davis says the University has been working to create the ‘entrepreneurial ecology’ that is necessary for these efforts to succeed. The Wade Institute and the Master’s program will make an important and ground-breaking contribution to these efforts.

www.ormond.unimelb.edu.au

The Chair of Ormond College Council, Andrew Michelmore, has recently announced that Dr Peter Binks is to be the foundation Director of the Wade Institute. Dr Binks was formerly CEO of the Sir John Monash Foundation, and brings to the role experience in the world of commercialising science, having formerly led Nanotechnology Victoria, also a wealth of experience across the corporate sector from his roles at McKinsey, Telstra, and BHP.