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ITEC professors currently offer two programs for the global entrepreneur: The Norwegian Entrepreneurship Program and the Graduate Diploma in Entrepreneurial Management. The Graduate Diploma in Entrepreneurial Management helps students recognize business resources and opportunities; enact successful decision-making processes; and assess the risks associated with entrepreneurial business management. The four-month program focuses on the launch and management of new ventures, blending the academic tools required to develop and operate an entrepreneurial business with practical approaches to making such a business financially successful and internationally competitive. ITEC and the Boston University School of Management Educate a New Breed of Norwegian Entrepreneurs
The Norwegian Entrepreneurship Program is an intense 12-week session in technology entrepreneurship taught by professors and practitioners from the Institute for Technology Entrepreneurship and Commercialization. Students take courses in entrepreneurial management and practice and can intern with a local company in their field. After three months spent refining business plans and practicing how to pitch their idea to investors, many program graduates implement their business ideas upon their return to Norway. "Getting young entrepreneurs to think big, developing the skills they will need to succeed in the global market, immersing them in handson practice and mentoring new venture development is what this program is all about," says Paul McManus, Director of International Programs at ITEC and School of Management ExecutiveinResidence. Paul teaches entrepreneurial management in the Norwegian Entrepreneurship Program. While on the program in 2005, Simen Malmin worked on a business plan used later that year to create Balter Medical, Inc, a medical device company. Balter Medical is an example of how today's start ups go global from the beginning. The research was developed at a Norwegian university, but to pursue the world's biggest market for medical devices and funding opportunities, the company established a U.S office in New Jersey at a very early stage. Simen, who is now Commercial Manager of Balter Medical, and three other students worked with the company during the day and attended classes in the evenings. At weekly meetings, ITEC professors helped the students develop the business plan, identify key priorities and grow as a team. "It was very inspiring to meet people who share the passion for creating a business, and I became more confident in the entrepreneurial setting communicating the business idea both in writing and orally. It was also very valuable both for the progress of the company and for my personal experience in working full time in a start-up," said Simen. He has spent much of his time pitching Balter Medical to investors in Europe and the US, but being one of the few nontechnical staff he does a bit of everything except the R&D.
The company was founded by Jakob Stamnes, a professor at the University of Bergen, Norway, and Knut Stamnes from Stevens Institute of Technology in New Jersey. When Simen entered the Norwegian Entrepreneurship Program, the company was still early in the technology commercialization phase and only limited clinical studies had been performed. Today it has ten employees representing seven different nationalities based on two continents and, after finalizing clinical trials, is beginning to manufacture the final device design. "The Norwegian Entrepreneurship Program is an important, unique program that fits the new ‘breed’ of entrepreneurs in Norway," says Stein Hansen, who helped Boston University set up the training program while an Industry Attache and Senior Technology Counsellor for Innovation Norway. "The Boston setting provides a goldmine of opportunities for these students, especially through the firsthand access to global leaders among academic institutions, technology providers, entrepreneurs and investor resources," says Stein, who is now a professor at Vestfold University College and head of its Regional Innovation Unit. "It is my opinion that many of these presentday students will be very visible entrepreneurs in the global playground of the future." |
Economies across the globe are recognizing that entrepreneurship represents one of the best ways to become competitive in the global market and create local jobs. Norway, with its oil-focused economy, is among those countries fostering entrepreneurship as a means of developing a more diverse economy. Each year since 2002, up to 50 of the country's most promising master's level students and start up teams participate in a rigorous entrepreneurship program at the 
Balter Medical has prototyped a hand-held optical scanning device that can differentiate malignant melanoma from benign moles. With the device, dermatologists and eventually general practitioners will be able to make an immediate diagnosis of a suspicious-looking mole in the exam room. Today’s best practice is a painful biopsy of the mole, a wait of up to several weeks while the mole is diagnosed by a specialist in a laboratory, and a cost of up to $250 per examination. In addition, only one out of 40 biopsies is malignant. 