Boosting High Impact Entrepreneurship In Australia A Role For Universities

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With this brief outline around boosting high impact entrepreneurship in australia a role for universities.

Prepared by Spike Innovation for
the Of?ce of the Chief Scientist.
OCTOBER 2015
BOOSTING HIGH-IMPACT
ENTREPRENEURSHIP
IN AUSTRALIA
A role for universities
OCTOBER 2015
BOOSTING HIGH-IMPACT
ENTREPRENEURSHIP
IN AUSTRALIA
Office of the Chief Scientist
Prepared by Spike Innovation for
the Of?ce of the Chief Scientist.
A role for universities
ii BOOSTING HIGH-IMPACT ENTREPRENEURSHIP IN AUSTRALIA
© Spike Innovation 2015
Disclaimer
Tis Report has been prepared by Spike Innovation for the
Commonwealth of Australia as represented by the Ofce of the
Chief Scientist.
Te reader should obtain their own independent advice to verify
the accuracy of the information contained in the Report before
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Commonwealth of Australia to any particular course of action.
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Any fndings, recommendations or opinions contained in
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Suggested citation
“Boosting High-Impact Entrepreneurship in Australia-—
A role for universities”, Spike Innovation, October 2015
Tis document is available online at www.chiefscientist.gov.au.
iii FOREWORD
FOREWORD
In popular culture the entrepreneur is the rogue genius who
succeeds without—or in spite of—education. And it would
be extremely convenient if that were true.
If we cannot teach entrepreneurship, we can only recognise
the born entrepreneurs; and get out of their way whilst they
get on with the business of change.
Yet nations across the world have not been content to
wait for the one-in-a-million person to seize a once-in-a-
lifetime chance. From the United States to Korea, fostering
entrepreneurs has become a national priority, pursued with
energy, ambition and imagination.
Tese eforts stem from a shared understanding born of
experience: that entrepreneurialism can be encouraged, and
industries transformed as a result.
Entrepreneurship is an economic activity, requiring attention
to the framework conditions for business creation and
growth. But more importantly, it is a human endeavour,
requiring attention to the way that our attitudes are shaped,
our skills developed, our networks formed.
And so it is inseparable from education—not independent
of it.
In September 2014, I called for the Australian Government
to build entrepreneurship into education at all levels, as part
of a national strategy to prepare Australia and Australians for
prosperity through innovation in the decades ahead.
Tis report was commissioned to provide an evidence base
for efective action at scale. We sought, in particular, to
understand how to encourage entrepreneurs to capitalise
on science, technology, engineering and mathematics
through universities.
Not all entrepreneurs have a background in science,
technology, engineering or mathematics, but many do;
and all will need to harness those disciplines to make a
business competitive at the global scale. And universities are
pivotal, as the stories of so many of the world’s most iconic
entrepreneurs suggests. Some grew their businesses from
university-afliated research; many more were shaped by the
people they met and the attitudes they imbibed.
As this report reiterates, we too can work consciously to
broaden our students’ opportunities—or we can narrow their
choices by default to the well-trodden paths.
Te present focus on universities does not exclude the need
to act in schools. If students come to higher education with
their attitudes hardened, they will not see or welcome its
possibilities. You do not make a cake by icing a brick. You
can approach education at all levels as a process of enabling
inquiry, encouraging creativity and opening horizons.
We all need to shift our mindsets to make the future
envisaged by this report, from a willingness to muddle along
to a determination to make our luck.
Our entrepreneurial Australia is ours to create.
Professor Ian Chubb AC
Chief Scientist for Australia
October 2015
iv BOOSTING HIGH-IMPACT ENTREPRENEURSHIP IN AUSTRALIA
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
* Reuters, The world’s most innovative universities, (2015), http://reuters.com/most-innovative-universities
Cornell University, INSEAD, and WIPO, The Global Innovation Index 2015: Effective Policies for Development, (2015), Ithaca, Geneva.
Te global economy is changing, and with it, the skills
required to succeed. Knowledge—and the capacity to acquire
it, manage it and apply it—is the foundation of the high-
growth industries of the future.
Australia has not fully bridged the gap between the creation
of knowledge and its application.
When compared with 11 Western European countries, the
United States and Canada, Australia performs well in the
share of the world’s top 1 per cent of cited research papers
in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics
(STEM).
1
We place ninth for the quality of our scientifc
institutions.
2
Yet we only place 72nd for Innovation
Efciency, a measure of innovation output relative to
input in the Global Innovation Index (2015). Tere are
no Australian universities in Reuters’ ranking of top 100
innovative universities.*
Less than one in two Australian businesses report innovative
activity of any kind—whether product, process, or strategy.
Very few take new products and services to market.
A lesson from other countries is that new knowledge in itself is
not enough to catalyse broad-based change across an economy.
An important missing link between knowledge and its
application is the entrepreneur.
AN INCREASINGLY ENTREPRENEURIAL WORLD
Entrepreneurs start and build businesses. Te entrepreneurs
who create the greatest economic impact are those who
build high-growth businesses with global ambitions and the
ability to disrupt large markets using technology. Around the
world, these technology-based businesses drive productivity
growth, create high-value jobs and boost living standards.
Governments at all levels are increasingly adopting economic
policies aimed at stimulating the creation of high-growth
frms and supporting them as they grow.
Producing entrepreneurs is now seen as an economic priority,
and teaching high-impact entrepreneurship has become an
important role for universities.
LEARNING FROM COUNTRIES WITH SUCCESSFUL
ENTREPRENEURIAL CULTURES
Countries with high levels of technology entrepreneurship
have government policy settings that support an
entrepreneurial ecosystem. In countries such as Israel, South
Korea, the UK and the United States, certain common
characteristics emerge in an analysis of the global leaders:
1. Tey support the growth of technology companies
through a range of policy measures and programs
specifcally aimed at frms with the greatest capacity
for growth.
2. Tey start early, introducing entrepreneurship in schools
and immersing university students in a diverse range of
entrepreneurship programs.
3. Leading countries make technology entrepreneurship a
priority, backed by a national strategy that recognises the
role of universities as drivers of entrepreneurial culture.
4. Tey expose young people to the best international
startup ecosystems and cultures in order to produce
entrepreneurs who think globally.
Singapore is taking active steps to foster an entrepreneurial
ecosystem. It has committed over A$1 billion to boosting
innovation and entrepreneurship over the fve years to 2015,
with the stated goal of shifting the country’s economy
from labour-driven to productivity-driven industries by
supporting research, innovation and entrepreneurship.
It has done this alongside a A$13 billion boost to R&D
expenditure in recognition of the importance of science as a
basis for technology-based industries.
Similarly, South Korea launched its A$4 billion Creative
Economy Initiative in 2013 with the aim of stimulating the
creation of new high-growth businesses and accelerating
the growth of its technology sector through high-impact
entrepreneurship.
Australia has been slow to embrace entrepreneurship as a
driver of economic growth. Our policy environment does
little to encourage or support high-impact entrepreneurs
despite the fact that we are economically exposed as a nation
heavily reliant on commodity industries.
UNIVERSITIES ARE CENTRAL
Regions with successful entrepreneurial cultures have
a vibrant university sector that encourages and fosters
entrepreneurship. Stanford and MIT have produced
graduates who have gone on to create 39,900 and
25,800 companies respectively, generating an estimated
US$2.7 and US$3.3 trillion in annual revenues. Many of
these companies are based on technology spanning a diverse
v EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
1 Of?ce of the Chief Scientist 2014, Benchmarking Australian Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics. Australian Government, Canberra
2 WEF Global Competitiveness Index 2014-15
range of disciplines such as software, biotech, advanced
manufacturing and cleantech.
Producing and training entrepreneurs is not seen as a priority
for most Australian universities. Several universities have
introduced promising initiatives, but many of the existing
programs are too small, do not engage students in STEM
disciplines, or do not refect international best practice.
Tis is compounded by limited engagement between
universities and industry.
Higher education expenditure on STEM research was
A$7 billon in 2012, but there has been little focus on
ensuring universities help drive economic growth.
A new approach is required to expose STEM students to
entrepreneurship and to support them in building businesses
that will compete globally.
Analysis by PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) shows that
technology startups could contribute over A$100 billion of
additional Gross Domestic Product (GDP) by 2033, but
only if we increase the number of high-impact entrepreneurs
by a factor of 20 and improve the supportiveness of the
ecosystem in which they operate. Universities and
government have important roles to play in bridging this gap.
A WAY FORWARD FOR AUSTRALIAN
UNIVERSITIES
Tis report identifes the skills and attitudes that STEM
graduates require to become the next generation of
entrepreneurs. It shows how universities can teach these
skills and provide an environment that encourages students
to explore high-impact entrepreneurship as an alternative to
traditional career paths.
Tis report studies several universities with impressive track
records as breeding grounds for entrepreneurs, and fnds the
following common attributes:
` Strong engagement between the university and the local
startup ecosystem
` Courses delivered by experienced entrepreneurs
` Students given multiple opportunities for engagement—
ranging from short courses to immersive programs such as
internships and overseas placements
` Programs support multi-disciplinary collaboration that
includes STEM
` Emphasis on experiential programs and learning by doing
` Funding arrangements with government drive investment
in establishing and delivering student entrepreneurship
programs that operate at signifcant scale
` Recognition and reward for academics who engage in
student entrepreneurship activities
` Programs based on modern startup approaches such as
Lean Startup.
Learning from best practice, and translating efective
programs to the Australian context, will be an important step
towards boosting Australia’s entrepreneurial capabilities.
Australia needs to become known as an entrepreneurial
country, not a lucky one.
Now is the right time for the government and the
university sector to work together with industry to
bring about a transformation in which high-growth,
technology-based businesses become a driving force
behind Australia’s economy.
Colin Kinner
Director—Spike Innovation
October 2015
About the author
Colin Kinner is director of Spike
Innovation, a consulting ?rm that
specialises in development and
implementation of entrepreneurship
programs focused on high-growth
technology companies.
Colin is an experienced
entrepreneurship educator, having
delivered entrepreneurship training and coaching to
hundreds of aspiring entrepreneurs. He is also an active
early-stage investor and a mentor to a number of startup
founders, project director for the Startup Catalyst Silicon
Valley program, and an active advocate for the national
tech startup ecosystem.
Colin has previously run a startup incubator, served on
the boards of a number of venture-backed technology
companies, and held senior roles in the commercialisation
arms of several universities in Australia and the UK.
vii CONTENTS
FOREWORD iii
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY iv
A NOTE ON TERMINOLOGY viii
CHAPTER 1 — THE IMPORTANCE OF ENTREPRENEURSHIP 1
CHAPTER 2 — LEARNING FROM THE GLOBAL LEADERS 11
CHAPTER 3 — ENTREPRENEURSHIP SKILLS 23
CHAPTER 4 — BEST PRACTICE ENTREPRENEURSHIP EDUCATION 33
CHAPTER 5 — A WAY FORWARD FOR AUSTRALIA 53
CHAPTER 6 — ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS 65
APPENDIX A — TERMS OF REFERENCE 67
CONTENTS
viii BOOSTING HIGH-IMPACT ENTREPRENEURSHIP IN AUSTRALIA
Terminology is challenging in any discussion of the economic impact of entrepreneurship, not only because of the large
number of terms in common use, but also because the same terms are used by diferent groups to mean diferent things.
For clarity, this report adopts the following defnitions:
A NOTE ON TERMINOLOGY
1 C. Kinner, StartupAUS, Crossroads, (2014), https://startupaus.org/resources/crossroads-report/.
2 E. Connolly, D. Norman, T. West, Reserve Bank of Australia, Small Business: An Economic Overview, (2012), http://www.abs.gov.au/websitedbs/d3310114.ns
f/4a256353001af3ed4b2562bb00121564/d291d673c4c5aab4ca257a330014dda2/$FILE/RBA%20Small%20Business%20An%20economic%20Overview%20
2012.pdf.
High-growth company A company that grows rapidly. Many are technology-based,
although technology is not an essential criterion.
High-tech company A company whose products or services are based on new
technology being developed and commercialised by the
company. Often this technology is the basis for high growth
as it confers a competitive advantage.
High-impact company A company that is based on innovation and delivers signi?cant
job creation, economic impact and societal impact.
High-impact entrepreneurship The act of starting and growing a high-impact company.
Tech startup (often shortened to “startup”) A recently formed company that has the potential for high
growth and is using either new technology or business
model innovation coupled with existing technology (eg. the
internet) as an enabler of growth.
The Crossroads report commissioned by StartupAUS
(Australia’s peak body for startups) de?nes a startup as “an
emerging high-growth company that is using technology and
innovation to tackle a large and most often global market.”
It further notes that startups have two important de?ning
characteristics, being potential for high growth (for which the
ability of companies to raise capital from investors is a good
proxy) and disruptive innovation, the process by which new
entrants displace established competitors through use of
technology and business model innovation.
1
Small business A business with fewer than 20 employees.
2

CHAPTER 1
THE IMPORTANCE OF
ENTREPRENEURSHIP
2 BOOSTING HIGH-IMPACT ENTREPRENEURSHIP IN AUSTRALIA
WHAT IS ENTREPRENEURSHIP?
At its simplest level, entrepreneurship is the act of starting
any kind of new business. By this defnition, Australia
performs comparatively well. Tere are around 2 million
small businesses in Australia, around two thirds of which
have no employees, and business formation rates have been
steadily increasing since 2008.
3
In 2011, 10.5 per cent of the
Australian adult population were estimated to be actively
engaged in starting and running a business (a rate second
only to the United States among developed countries)
4
and
132,000 “start-ups” (defned as businesses under three years
old) were recorded.
5
Most small businesses start and forever remain small,
providing largely undiferentiated products and services,
operating only in domestic markets, and in many cases
serving customers only in small geographic areas such as
cafés, restaurants and small retailers.
A rare few do have the potential to grow to global scale and
grow the national economy substantially in turn. Tey, and
the individuals who create them, are the focus of this report.
High-impact entrepreneurs are those who start
and grow businesses that are innovation-based,
tackle large opportunities, and if successful, grow
rapidly to create large numbers of jobs and deliver
signi?cant economic impact.
According to the World Economic Forum, high-impact
entrepreneurship can be defned with reference to four
essential criteria:
6,7
` Innovation—Te company creates signifcant benefts for
customers through new-to-world products or services, often
based on new technology or business model innovation.
Australian example: ResMed, a manufacturer of devices
for diagnosis and treatment of respiratory conditions, has
improved the quality of life for millions of patients worldwide
with sleep-disordered breathing and chronic obstructive
pulmonary disease.
` Job creation—Te company creates large numbers of
high value and high skill jobs as it grows.
Australian example: Cochlear, a manufacturer of
cochlear implants for the hearing impaired, created 1,408
new jobs over the period 2005 to 2012. Of its total workforce,
40 per cent have a tertiary qualifcation and 48 individuals
have PhDs or other postgraduate qualifcations.
` Wealth creation—Te company directly generates
signifcant wealth for the founders, employees and
investors, and indirectly for the economies in which
they operate.
Australian example: SEEK, an online job listings
company, grew from inception in 1997 to current revenues of
A$756 million and a market capitalisation of A$3.6 billion.
Not only did the founders, employees and investors beneft
from this wealth creation, but also the Australian economy via
tax revenues and the formation of multiple new startups and
venture capital funds by its founders and early employees.
` Societal impact—Te company has a positive impact
on an important aspect of society such as human health,
the environment, education or industry transformation.
Australian example: Pharmaxis, a pharmaceutical
company, develops new drugs to treat and manage respiratory
diseases such as asthma and cystic fbrosis, which afect over
300 million people worldwide.
KEY POINTS
` High-impact entrepreneurship is about building high-growth businesses based on technology and innovation.
` Tese businesses drive economic impact, enable access to global markets and create high-value jobs.
` Many high-growth businesses are based on technology and require a combination of STEM skills and
entrepreneurial skills.
` Australia has a strong STEM base, but relatively few high-impact entrepreneurs.
` To secure Australia’s economic future we need signifcantly more STEM graduates to become high-impact
entrepreneurs and build globally competitive technology companies.
3 CHAPTER 1 THE IMPORTANCE OF ENTREPRENEURSHIP
High-impact entrepreneurs make up a very small fraction of
all new businesses by number, but deliver disproportionate
economic benefts due to their much greater capacity to
grow their operations beyond local geographic boundaries
and operate in global markets.
A 2011 World Economic Forum study found that the top
1 per cent of frms contribute 44 per cent of total revenues
and 40 per cent of total jobs, and that these frms are
characterised by having the highest rates of growth and
being based on innovation and technology.
8
Research from
around the world
9,10
has shown that new businesses are net
job creators, whilst existing businesses are net job destroyers.
Similarly, the UK’s Centre for Economics and Business
Research found that the 1 per cent of UK businesses with
the highest rates of growth generated 68 per cent of all new
jobs created in 2012–13.
11

In Australia, the Ofce of the Chief Economist in the
Department of Industry and Science found that a very small
fraction (3 per cent) of startups (0–9 employees) drive the
majority (77 per cent) of startup post-entry job creation, a
fnding that is consistent with other OECD countries.
12
For individuals, high-impact entrepreneurship provides an
opportunity to create wealth, to control their own economic
future, to gain experience that is valuable in future ventures
and as an employee, and to have a meaningful impact on
entire industries.
For Australia, it is the path to wealth and job creation in a
global economy defned by its disrupters.
THE OPPORTUNITIES IN
DISRUPTION
A recent report by PlayBigger
13
highlighted a new
winner-take-all dynamic occurring in many industries, in
which the dominant company in a given category typically
captures more than 70 per cent of that market’s value in a
relatively short period of time, leaving only a small slice of
the global market for all other competitors.
Disruptive innovation is both an opportunity and a threat.
Existing companies have everything to lose if their market
share is rapidly eroded by a more innovative and agile new
competitor. Startups, on the other hand, have everything to
gain by being the disruptors and rapidly acquiring market
share from older, slower and less innovative frms.
Based on the work of Professor Richard Foster of Yale
University and global strategy consulting frm Innosight, the
average lifespan of a major listed company is now just 18
years, down from a high of 67 years in the early twentieth
century. Analysis by Innosight predicts that at the current
rate of company replacement, by 2027 three quarters of the
S&P 500 will consist of companies that were unknown at
the beginning of this century.
14,15
Te acceleration of this process means that relying on
established companies for future economic growth and jobs
is becoming a less viable strategy as the average age of large
frms decreases and a larger share of economic output is
attributed to new entrants.
One need only look at the rate of growth of companies such
as Google (market capitalisation of A$600 billion, largely
from disrupting traditional advertising), Uber (market
capitalisation of A$70 billion from disrupting the taxi
industry), AirBnB (market capitalisation of A$30 billion
from disruption of the hotel industry) to see the pace
In my opinion, the career advice students receive: study what you like, graduate, apply for graduate
job at a consulting, fnance or other established company—is outdated and wrong, and heads
students into career paths that probably won’t exist in fve years time.
James Alexander
Founder of INCUBATE, a student startup incubator at Te University of Sydney
4 BOOSTING HIGH-IMPACT ENTREPRENEURSHIP IN AUSTRALIA
at which economic wealth is being transferred from
established companies to new ones, and without regard
for geographic boundaries. Digital innovation is of course
a signifcant enabler of this transformation, but it can also
be seen in many other industries such as energy (solar and
battery storage replacing traditional power generation) and
manufacturing (3D printing replacing an increasingly wide
range of traditional manufacturing processes).
Te impact of this dynamic for Australia is that if we are to
prosper in this new world of rapid disruption and renewal
we will need to become profcient at starting and rapidly
growing companies that can become category leaders.
A CLOSE RELATIONSHIP
WITH STEM
Many high-impact companies have their roots in STEM
due to the important role of STEM in creating technology
that can be the basis for diferentiated products and services,
and in conferring a competitive advantage that enables
businesses to grow rapidly.
In Israel, a massive 70 per cent of the country’s industrial
product has been attributed to high-tech companies
16
and
today the high-tech industry accounts for over 26 per cent
of Israel’s exports.
17
In the ten years to 2012, 772 Israeli
startups were acquired for a total of A$60 billion.
18
Israel
now has more companies listed on the NASDAQ exchange
than any country outside the United States, despite having a
population of only eight million people.
Similarly, it has been estimated that science, innovation and
entrepreneurship are responsible for roughly half of all US
economic growth in the last 50 years.
19

In 2013, PwC quantifed the potential economic impact
to Australia of increasing the number of tech startups
and better supporting them to become globally successful
companies. Te resulting analysis
20
showed that
technology-based startup companies could contribute
4 per cent of GDP (over A$100 billion) and add 540,000
jobs to the Australian economy by 2033 from a current level
of approximately 0.2 per cent of GDP.
Te opportunities to derive value from STEM skills go far
beyond digital companies. Australia has world-class research
and teaching capabilities in biotechnology, drug discovery,
medical devices, cleantech, agriculture and robotics—to
name just a few. Australia has already demonstrated the
capacity to create globally impactful high-tech companies
such as ResMed, Cochlear, Pharmaxis and Spinifex, as
well as products that are brought to market by others such
as the Gardasil® cervical cancer vaccine developed at Te
University of Queensland and licensed to CSL and Merck.
CREATING A NEW ECONOMY AND
NEW JOBS
Recent reports by PwC
21
and CEDA
22
show that more than
40 per cent of current Australian jobs (or 5 million jobs) are
at risk of being displaced by computerisation and automation
over the next 10 to 20 years.
Te Foundation for Young Australians estimates
23
that 60
per cent of Australian university students are training for
jobs that will not exist in the future due to computerisation
and automation.
Te jobs that are at risk are not just low-skill jobs that can
be replaced by automation, but also highly skilled jobs across
many sectors including healthcare and professional services.
Te only way to be ready for this change is to embark on a
deliberate path of economic reform in which we set out to
create a new economy and new jobs based on innovation
and entrepreneurship.
Universities must ensure that students graduate with a mix of skills that will equip them for their
professions, not just as they are now, but as they will be in ten or twenty years’ time.
As the nature of employment changes, the ability to be fexible, adaptive, and proactively seek out
problems and design solutions for them will become ever more important. Developing programs
that encourage interdisciplinary, solutions-based learning for students, support enterprise and
independence, and reward an entrepreneurial mindset is one of our top educational priorities.
Professor Margaret Gardner AO
President and Vice-Chancellor, Monash University
5 CHAPTER 1 THE IMPORTANCE OF ENTREPRENEURSHIP
In his book Te New Geography of Jobs,
24
Enrico Moretti shows
that technology-based jobs have a larger multiplier efect than
jobs in any other sector. For each new technology-based job,
fve additional jobs are created in other sectors. Tis multiplier
efect is three times larger in the technology sector than in
extractive industries or traditional manufacturing, accounting
for employment growth in the US technology sector being 25
times that of other parts of the economy.
ENTREPRENEURS WITHIN LARGE
ORGANISATIONS
Entrepreneurs are a vital ingredient in the formation of
startups. Tey are often the ones who see opportunities and
go after them, managing risk.
Entrepreneurial mindsets are also valuable in the workforce.
Employers are increasingly seeking graduates with
entrepreneurial experience and skills to act as internal
entrepreneurs (or “intrapreneurs”). Tis trend has accelerated
in recent years as more companies realise that their industries
are facing disruption from startups and they need to learn to
innovate more efectively than ever before.
Entrepreneurship is a skill set with a broad application.
Tis is important and helpful to many, not only those who
choose to pursue a career as an entrepreneur. Producing
entrepreneurially-wired and skilled employees is another
important role for Australian universities as a means of
boosting the performance of existing businesses.
Some of the benefts achieved by established companies in
embracing entrepreneurial attitudes and skill sets include:
` Greater tolerance for risk and failure
` Increased emphasis on innovation as a driver of growth
` Focus on large opportunities and global markets rather
than small domestic niches
` More agile approach to product development
` Adoption of Lean Startup approaches that result in faster
product iteration
` Increased engagement with entrepreneurs outside the
organisation, leading to greater awareness of emerging
trends
` Opportunities to engage with or acquire startups as a
means of developing new products and revenue streams
` Greater willingness to act quickly on opportunities rather
than undertake lengthy analysis.
TAKING STOCK OF OUR POSITION
As a country, Australia produces an average of 43,000
STEM research publications annually, ranking it tenth in
the world.
25
Its residents also fled approximately 1,979
standard patent applications domestically in 2014, and
9,012 internationally in 2013.
26
Australia also ranks 13th
out of 200 countries in R&D expenditure as a percentage
of GDP
27
and its 43 universities produced 25,000 domestic
STEM graduates in 2012.
28

Australia is good at producing research outputs, but
performs relatively poorly in converting this investment in
science and technology into economic impact. Te 2015
Global Innovation Index
29
ranked Australia 72nd in the
world in Innovation Efciency, a measure of innovation
output relative to input.
In the last few years the AGSM has seen a massive increase in demand for graduates with a
grounding in entrepreneurship, particularly among organisations that are facing disruption
from startups. To meet this demand we are exposing students to entrepreneurship in an
experiential setting by providing them with internships in tech startups, and through high-quality
entrepreneurship education delivered by experienced entrepreneurs.
Entrepreneurship is now a central part of what we teach every student, and I strongly endorse the
notion that all Australian universities should equip graduates across all disciplines with a practical
grounding in entrepreneurship.
Julie Cogin
Director, Australian Graduate School of Management, UNSW
6 BOOSTING HIGH-IMPACT ENTREPRENEURSHIP IN AUSTRALIA
According to the Ofce of the Chief Economist in the
Department of Industry,
30
Australia compares poorly
with many other countries on measures of new-to-world
innovation (in which a business is the frst in the world with
a particular new product or service), and our innovation
performance has been declining for over a decade.
As can be seen in Figure 1, based on the Business
Characteristics Survey conducted by the ABS, emerging
Australian frms are primarily domestic modifers of
innovation (replicating technology and innovation seen
elsewhere) and internal innovators (making improvements
to internal processes and practices), with relatively little
emphasis on new-to-market innovation.
31

New-to-market international innovation is important for
economic growth, since it increases exports, boosts economic
diversity, helps to rapidly capture market share, and allows frms
to engage in global rather than purely domestic industries.
Available data indicates that there are around 1,200 tech
startups in Australia, which represents 0.06 per cent of all
Australian businesses. Te roughly 2,000 entrepreneurs who
founded these companies are a small fraction of the 43,000
startup founders that PwC estimates will be needed by 2033.
32
Comparing startup formation rates in Australia with other
countries highlights a signifcant gap. Te National Survey
of Research and Commercialisation reported that in 2013,
0.4 startups per US$100 million research expenditure were
formed in Australia. In comparison, 1.5 and 1.3 startups
were formed per US$ 100million research expenditure
in Canada and US respectively.* Research by Boundlss
33

in 2014 estimates that in Australia around 20 to 30 tech
startups are formed annually per million people, compared
to annual startup formation rates of between 100 and 250
startups per million people in startup hotspots such as
Boulder, Silicon Valley and San Francisco.
As can be seen in Figure 2, the total number of tech startups
in Australian cities is low in a global context.
34

A similar observation can be made about the rates of
startup formation from graduates of Australian universities.
Figure 3, based on analysis by global startup database
CrunchBase, shows that Australian universities are
producing fewer graduates who form startups than many
overseas institutions.
35

Figure 1: Proportion of different types of innovators, by ?rm size, 2008–09
0 10 20
New to market international innovators
New to market domestic innovators
International modi?ers
Domestic modi?ers
Adapters
Business with abandoned or ongoing innovation only
Proportion of businesses (%)
200 or more persons 5–19 persons 0–4 persons 20–199 persons
* National Survey of Research Commercialisation is authored by the Department of Industry, Innovation and Science. http://www.industry.gov.au/innovation/
reportsandstudies/NSRC/Pages/default.aspx
7 CHAPTER 1 THE IMPORTANCE OF ENTREPRENEURSHIP
Figure 2: Startups per million people (2013–2014)
Figure 3: Total startup founders by university, based on startups currently listed on CrunchBase (August 2013)
0 500 1,000 1,500 2,000
Tel Aviv
Silicon Valley
New York
Berlin
Seattle
Austin
South Korea
London
Denver + Boulder
San Diego
Sydney
Singapore
Bangalore
Melbourne
Number of startups per million population
0 50 100 150 200 250 300
Stanford University
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
University of California, Berkeley
Harvard University
Harvard Business School
Cornell University
Columbia University
University of Pennsylvania
Stanford Graduate School of Business
Yale University
University of Michigan
University of Southern California (USC)
Tel Aviv University
Columbia University
Carnegie Mellon University
University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA)
Wharton School University of Pennsylvania
New York University (NYU)
Brown University
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
University of Waterloo
Princeton University
University of Oxford
Dartmouth College
University of Cambridge
University of Chicago
Indian Institute of Technology
Boston University
Technion, Israel Institute of Technology
Imperial College London
Trinity College Dublin
Drexel University
The Hebrew University
University of New South Wales
Ben Gurion University, Israel
Copenhagen University
King's College London
National University of Singapore
University of Technology, Sydney
Birla Institute of Technology & Science, Dubai
Monash University
Queensland University of Technology
University of Queensland
BITS Pilani, India
Cardiff University
Swinburne University of Technology
University of Melbourne
Delhi University
Curtin University of Technology
Number of startup founders
Australian
universities
8 BOOSTING HIGH-IMPACT ENTREPRENEURSHIP IN AUSTRALIA
Deloitte and Pollenizer compared tech startups in Australia
and Silicon Valley, and found that Australian startups are
signifcantly less likely to be focused on markets worth a
billion dollars or more. Tis may be in part due to the fact
that Australia has relatively few young startup founders and
therefore relatively few startups that are tackling the riskiest,
but often most lucrative opportunities.
36
If Australia is to reap the economic beneft of its investment
in STEM we must not only produce STEM graduates, but
also ensure they are willing to become entrepreneurs, are
equipped with the right skills, and can grow successful global
businesses that employ a diverse range of people.
Entrepreneurial skills are not just for startups. Employees with entrepreneurial skills are also
extremely sought-after in large organisations, such as Google.
We fnd that such employees can identify opportunities, and use their initiative and drive to fnd
solutions that are not apparent to others.
Te common trait, whether the founder of a startup, or an “intrapreneur” working within a
multinational, is the single-minded passion to be an agent for change and to make it happen.
Alan Noble
Engineering Director, Google Australia
9 CHAPTER 1 THE IMPORTANCE OF ENTREPRENEURSHIP
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3 OECD, Entrepreneurship at a Glance, (2015), http://dx.doi.
org/10.1787/entrepreneur_aag-2015-en
4 Australian Centre for Entrepreneurship Research, Global
Entrepreneurship Monitor: National Entrepreneurial
Assessment for Australia, (2011), http://www.
gemconsortium.org/country-profle/37
5 L. Hendrickson, S. Bucifal, A. Balaguer, D. Hansell,
Department of Industry, Innovation and Science and
Australian Bureau of Statistics, Te employment dynamics of
Australian entrepreneurship, (2015), http://www.industry.
gov.au/Ofce-of-the-Chief-Economist/Research-Papers/
Documents/2015-Research-Paper-4-Te-employment-
dynamics-of-Australian-entrepreneurship.pdf
6 Te World Economic Forum, Te Bold Ones –High-impact
Entrepreneurs Who Transform Industries, (2014), http://
www3.weforum.org/docs/AMNC14/WEF_AMNC14_
Report_TeBoldOnes.pdf
7 Te Australian Private Equity and Venture Capital
Association Limited, Te Economic Impact of VC in
Australia, (2013), https://www.avcal.com.au/documents/
item/610
8 Te World Economic Forum, Global Entrepreneurship
and the Successful Growth Strategies of Early-Stage
Companies, (2011), http://www3.weforum.org/docs/
WEF_Entrepreneurship_Report_2011.pdf
9 T. Kane, Kaufman : Te Foundation of Entrepreneurship,
Te importance of startups in job creation and job destruction,
(2010), http://www.kaufman.org/~/media/kaufman_org/
research%20reports%20and%20covers/2010/07/frm_
formation_importance_of_startups.pdf
10 OECD, OECD Science, Technology and Industry Scoreboard
2013, (2013), http://dx.doi.org/10.1787/sti_scoreboard-
2013-en
11 Octopus Investments, High growth small business
report, (2014), https://s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/
octopushgsb/Octopus-High-Growth-Small-Business-
Report-2014.pdf
12 L. Hendrickson, S. Bucifal, A. Balaguer, D. Hansell,
Department of Industry, Innovation and Science and
Australian Bureau of Statistics, Te employment dynamics of
Australian entrepreneurship, (2015), http://www.industry.
gov.au/Ofce-of-the-Chief-Economist/Research-Papers/
Documents/2015-Research-Paper-4-Te-employment-
dynamics-of-Australian-entrepreneurship.pdf
13 A. Ramadan, C. Lochhead, D. Peterson, K. Maney,
PlayBigger, Time to market cap, (2014), https://playbigger.
com/fles/PlayBiggerTTMCReport.pdf
14 R. Foster, S. Kaplan, Creative Destruction: Why Companies
Tat Are Built to Last Underperform the Market--And How
to Success fully Transform Tem. (Crown Business, 2011).
15 Innosight, Creative destruction whips through corporate
America, (2012), http://www.innosight.com/innovation-
resources/strategy-innovation/upload/creative-destruction-
whips-through-corporate-america_fnal2015.pdf
16 Israel Ministry of Foreign Afairs, Sectors of the Israeli
Economy, (2013), http://mfa.gov.il/MFA/AboutIsrael/
Economy/Pages/ECONOMY-%20Sectors%20of%20
the%20Economy.aspx
17 Technion: Israel Institute of Technology, Fast Facts,
(2012), http://www.technion.ac.il/en/fast-facts/
18 G. Press, Forbes, Start-Up Nation News: Israeli startups
acquired and funded in October, (2013), http://www.forbes.
com/sites/gilpress/2013/11/04/start-up-nation-news-
israeli-startups-acquired-and-funded-in-october/
19 US Department of Labor, Te STEM workforce challenge:
the role of public workforce system in a national solution for a
competitive science, technology, engineering, and mathematics
(STEM) workforce, (2007), http://digitalcommons.ilr.
cornell.edu/key_workplace/637
20 PricewaterhouseCoopers and Google Australia, Te
startup economy: How to support tech startups and accelerate
Australian innovation, (2013), https://www.digitalpulse.
pwc.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/PwC-Google-
Te-startup-economy-2013.pdf
21 PricewaterhouseCoopers, A smart move: Future-proofng
Australia’s workforce by growing skills in science, technology,
engineering and maths (STEM), (2015), http://www.pwc.
se/sv_SE/se/ofentlig-sektor/assets/a-smart-move.pdf.
22 Committee for Economic Development of
Australia, Australia’s future workforce?, (2015), http://
adminpanel.ceda.com.au/FOLDERS/Service/Files/
Documents/26792~Futureworkforce_June2015.pdf.
23 Foundation for Young Australians, Te new work order:
Ensuring young Australians have skills and experience for
the jobs of the future, not the past, (2015), http://www.fya.
org.au/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/fya-future-of-work-
report-fnal-lr.pdf.
24 E. Moretti, Te new geography of jobs. (Houghton Mifin
Harcourt, 2012).
25 Ofce of the Chief Scientist, Benchmarking Australian
Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics, (2014),
p.8, http://www.chiefscientist.gov.au/wp-content/uploads/
BenchmarkingAustralianSTEM_Web_Nov2014.pdf
10 BOOSTING HIGH-IMPACT ENTREPRENEURSHIP IN AUSTRALIA
26 IP Australia, Australian Intellectual Property Report,
(2015), p.8 and p18, Web statistics accessed from http://
www.ipaustralia.gov.au/about-us/what-we-do/reports/
ip_report_2015/2015_interactives_and_charts/fgure_11/
27 Bloomberg, Bloomberg Innovation Index, (2015), http://
www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2015-innovative-
countries/
28 Ofce of the Chief Scientist, Benchmarking Australian
Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics, (2014),
p.79, http://www.chiefscientist.gov.au/wp-content/
uploads/BenchmarkingAustralianSTEM_Web_Nov2014.
pdf
29 Cornell University, INSEAD and WIPO, Te
Global Innovation Index 2015: Efective innovation
policies for development, (2015), p.16, https://www.
globalinnovationindex.org/userfles/fle/reportpdf/GII-
2015-v5.pdf
30 Department of Industry, Australian Innovation Systems
Report, (2014), p.3, http://www.industry.gov.au/Ofce-
of-the-Chief-Economist/Publications/Documents/
Australian-Innovation-System/Australian-Innovation-
System-Report-2014.pdf
31 Department of Innovation, Industry, Science and
Research, Australian Innovation System Report,
(2011),p.59, http://industry.gov.au/innovation/
reportsandstudies/Documents/2011-Australian-
Innovation-System-Report.pdf
32 C. Kinner, StartupAUS, Crossroads, (2014), p.33, https://
startupaus.org/resources/crossroads-report/
33 J. Cacioppe, Australia needs $13 billion to fght of Vikings,
(2015), https://medium.com/the-boundlss-blog/australia-
needs-13-billion-to-fend-of-vikings-cd53866e83c6#.
bd4c9xoai
34 C. Kinner, StartupAUS, Crossroads, (2014), p.33, https://
startupaus.org/resources/crossroads-report/
35 M. Kaufman, Stanford, Harvard and UC Berkeley
Lead the Top 25 Schools in Churning out Entrepreneurs,
Info @ CrunchBase, (2013), https://info.crunchbase.
com/2013/08/entrepreneurs-and-universities/
36 P. Morle, Z. Kitschke, A. Jones, J. Tanchel, Pollenizer,
From Little Tings, Startup Genome Project and
Deloitte, Silicon Beach: A study of the Australian Startup
Ecosystem, (2012),p.21, http://www2.deloitte.com/
content/dam/Deloitte/au/Documents/technology-
media-telecommunications/deloitte-au-tmt-silicon-
beach-031014.pdf
CHAPTER 2
LEARNING FROM THE
GLOBAL LEADERS
12 BOOSTING HIGH-IMPACT ENTREPRENEURSHIP IN AUSTRALIA
THE GLOBAL RACE TO PRODUCE
ENTREPRENEURS
Over the last two decades, the world has witnessed a
rapid escalation of international eforts to produce more
entrepreneurs and better support them. Before reviewing
specifc initiatives in individual countries it is important to
consider which countries have performed well in innovation
and entrepreneurship.
Table 1 shows the top 10 countries (or cities in the case of
the Compass study) ranked by measures of entrepreneurship
and innovation performance. Whilst the studies set out to
measure diferent aspects of the ecosystems for innovative
and entrepreneurial frms, they can be a useful guide to
countries consistently identifed as top performers.
Table 1: Top 10 countries ranked by measures of entrepreneurship and innovation performance
Source
Top 10 ranked countries (cities) on measures of
entrepreneurship and innovation performance
Compass Global Startup Ecosystem Ranking 2015
38
Measures: Startup ecosystem performance, availability of
funding, talent, market reach and startup experience
Top 10 cities: Silicon Valley, New York City, Los Angeles,
Boston, Tel Aviv, London, Chicago, Seattle, Berlin, Singapore
Sydney ranked: 16
World Economic Forum Global Competitiveness Report
2014–15, Innovation Ranking
39

Measures: Conduciveness to technology innovation and
whether supported by the public and private sectors
Top 10 countries: USA, Finland, Germany, Israel, Japan,
Netherlands, Singapore, Switzerland, Sweden, China
Australia ranked: 25
Global Innovation Index 2015
40
Measures: A broad range of innovation measures such
as research, business sophistication, human capital and
technology outputs
Top 10 countries: USA, Switzerland, UK, Sweden,
Netherlands, Finland, Singapore, Ireland, Luxembourg,
Denmark
Australia ranked: 17
KEY POINTS
` A growing number of countries are producing high-impact entrepreneurs by exposing them to startups during university
and teaching practical skills needed to grow technology-based businesses.
` Universities in many countries view producing entrepreneurs as an important part of their role, and are funded to do so.
` Most Australian universities do not emphasise high-impact entrepreneurship, and funding arrangements do not
incentivise entrepreneurial behaviour, teaching or engagement.
` Entrepreneurship education in most Australian universities is delivered by academics with limited frst-hand experience
of entrepreneurship, and generally focuses on business students.
` Australia is the only country in the OECD that does not have a science and innovation strategy, and lacks a consistent
narrative about how the country will transition to a knowledge-intensive economy.
37
` A comprehensive innovation and entrepreneurship policy is needed.
13 CHAPTER 2 LEARNING FROM THE GLOBAL LEADERS
A further measure that may assist in identifying top-
performing countries is deployment of venture capital.
Companies that are growing rapidly and tackling large
markets very often need access to venture capital to fuel
their growth. An analysis of domestic availability of
venture capital is a measure of supportiveness of a country’s
ecosystem toward high growth companies.
Figure 4 shows domestic venture capital investment per
capita of population for a selection of countries:
41
Figure 4: Domestic venture capital investment—selected
countries, latest available data (A$ per capita of
population)
Based on the rankings in Figure 4 and measures of venture
capital availability, plus a review of national approaches to
fostering entrepreneurship, the following countries have been
selected for further discussion (Table 2).
Table 2: Rationale for selection of comparator countries
Country / region Reason for inclusion
United States Ranked highly for innovation
and entrepreneurship, strong
cultural support for high-impact
entrepreneurship over many decades
UK Ranked highly, substantial government
commitment to support high-impact
entrepreneurship, particularly over the
last decade
Israel Substantial government commitment
to spurring technology innovation
and entrepreneurship over a period of
more than 20 years
Singapore Ranked highly, government
commitment to spurring innovation
and entrepreneurship in recent years
South Korea Substantial government commitment
to spurring innovation and
entrepreneurship in recent years
All of these countries are actively seeking to create
an environment that is conducive to high-impact
entrepreneurship, and are using the education system
to expose students to entrepreneurship and equip them
with practical skills that will enable them to build globally
competitive companies.
It is important to note that many countries have not had
high-impact entrepreneurship policies in place for long
enough to have generated signifcant measurable economic
outcomes. However it is widely accepted that governments
have levers available to them to infuence the shape of their
national economies, and that these should have a strong
focus on science, innovation and entrepreneurship.
UNITED STATES
Te US Government has a broad range of policies aimed
at supporting high-impact entrepreneurship. Tis includes
the Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) program,
a funding initiative that encourages small businesses to
conduct research and development in response to specifc
US government needs. Te objectives of the SBIR
program include stimulating technological innovation and
encouraging participation in entrepreneurship. It allocates
approximately A$3.5 billion per annum to high growth-
potential frms that could contribute to the US economy,
but have not yet reached a stage of development where they
could attract venture capital investment.
42
In 2011, the Startup America Partnership was launched
to further support high-impact entrepreneurship as an
economic priority. Tis A$2.8 billion suite of programs
focuses on encouraging high-growth startups in preference
to small businesses, and seeks to leverage the existing strong
culture of entrepreneurship that already exists in many parts
of the country—particularly in Silicon Valley which has
developed its own entrepreneurial culture over more than
60 years.
Entrepreneurship education has also been a feature of
university life in the US since the early 1980s, and in many
cases is supported through endowment funding—a feature
of US universities that is largely absent in Australia.
Each year in the United States, over 400,000 students take
part in entrepreneurship training across 1,500 institutions,
delivered by 9,000 teaching staf.
43
Of the more than 1,200
incubators for startup in the US, around one third are on
university campuses.
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14 BOOSTING HIGH-IMPACT ENTREPRENEURSHIP IN AUSTRALIA
UK
Te UK Government’s Higher Education Innovation
Funding (HEIF) program provides funding to support and
develop a broad range of interactions between universities
and industry aimed at achieving economic and social beneft
to the UK.
Te program has been running since 2001, and in 2015
the government allocated A$350 million, of which around
A$35 million is specifcally to support entrepreneurship
training in universities.
HEIF funding has been used by universities in the UK for
purposes such as hiring entrepreneurs-in-residence, running
experiential education programs, work placements, business
idea competitions and student startup incubators.
44
A review of the HEIF program in 2012 found that for
every dollar of HEIF funding invested, six dollars of gross
additional economic impact was generated.
One of the measures of impact of the HEIF funding was
graduate startups formed. Since 2001 a total of 8,244 startups
have been formed by graduates in the UK, representing a 42
per cent increase over pre-HEIF funding levels.
45
In addition, over the last decade the UK government has
implemented a raft of policies and programs aimed explicitly
at supporting high-growth, globally focused businesses.
Tese include early-stage matching funds and tax incentives
to stimulate angel investment, a loans scheme to provide
seed capital and mentoring to early-stage businesses, funding
to support the creation of new venture capital funds, and
funding to support entrepreneurship programs in schools
and universities. Many of these initiatives are overseen
by Innovate UK, the UK’s innovation agency, which has
responsibility for a range of innovation programs and
provides input to government innovation and economic
development policy.
46
ISRAEL
Israel’s transition to a technology-focused economy began in
the early 1990s. One of the key factors in this transition was
the government’s Yozma program (Hebrew for “initiative”),
a tax incentive and matching funding program launched in
1993 to catalyse an active venture capital industry and fuel
the growth of high-tech Israeli companies.
47

In parallel, the government established a network of
22 technology-focused startup incubators that today support
approximately 180 companies under the direction of the
Ofce of the Chief Scientist. Each company accepted
into an incubator is entitled to receive up to A$880,000 in
government funding via a repayable grant.
48
Te government
provides 85 per cent of the incubators’ annual operating
budgets, or A$50 million per annum.
Trough the combination of funding and dedicated
startup incubators the Israeli government has helped launch
over 1,700 companies, of which 60 per cent have successfully
attracted private investment, with total investment in
graduated incubator companies now exceeding A$3.9
billion. It has also grown its venture capital industry from
A$58 million 1991 to A$3 billion in 2011.
49
In the decade
to 2012, 772 Israeli startups were acquired for a total
of A$46 billion, and the third quarter of 2013 saw 162
companies raise A$725 million in private capital.
50

As a result, of the signifcant national focus on high-
growth technology companies, Israeli universities have also
embraced high-impact entrepreneurship and most provide a
range of education and support programs to students, with a
particular emphasis on STEM disciplines.
Countries that have directly replicated elements of Israel’s
approach to stimulating high-impact entrepreneurship
include New Zealand, Singapore and South Korea.
Entrepreneurship is crucial to innovation and economic growth. Encouraging young students to
develop their entrepreneurial skills is highly benefcial for the students as well as for the innovation
ecosystem. Students are at a stage in their career in which they are very open to learn and try new
things, and this is the essence of entrepreneurship. However, starting a new project or company
might seem to some of them an obstacle too hard to overcome. It is our job to ‘nudge’ them to try
and experiment with entrepreneurship while testing their abilities and potential.
Avi Hasson
Israel’s Chief Scientist
15 CHAPTER 2 LEARNING FROM THE GLOBAL LEADERS
SINGAPORE
In 2008, Singapore’s President Tony Tan visited Tel Aviv
and witnessed Israel’s success in building a vibrant
knowledge-intensive economy.
Shortly afterwards, the Singapore government launched its
own National Framework for Innovation and Enterprise,
based on the Israeli approach of boosting high-impact
entrepreneurship through education and providing
fnancial support to high-growth companies. Te Singapore
government has committed A$1.1 billion over the fve years
to 2015 to boosting innovation and entrepreneurship as
part of a broader A$14 billion funding package for research,
innovation and enterprise. Its stated goals include shifting
the country’s economy from labour-driven to productivity-
driven industries by supporting research, innovation and
entrepreneurship, and fostering the creation and growth of at
least fve local technology companies with annual revenues
of more than A$1 billion.
51, 52, 53
Specifc university-based programs that have been supported
by the Singapore government include entrepreneurship
centres, summer schools, student startup accelerators and
overseas immersion trips to startup hubs such as Silicon
Valley, Beijing, Stockholm and Tel Aviv.
Te Singapore government’s suite of programs is overseen
by the national innovation agency SPRING Singapore,
and includes a network of 15 government-funded startup
incubators, matching funds to catalyse formation of venture
capital funds, government co-investment with private
investors, a grants scheme to support startups by funding
up to 50 per cent of technical staf salaries, and multiple
programs to develop entrepreneurship education in schools
and universities.
54
SOUTH KOREA
In 2013, the South Korean government announced the
“Creative Economy” initiative, a A$4 billion funding
commitment to boost entrepreneurship and accelerate
high-growth companies. Te initiative is part of the
government’s eforts to reduce the country’s dependence on
low-value manufacturing and to stimulate creation of new
high-growth businesses.
Te Korean Creative Economy initiative is overseen by
a newly created Ministry of Science, ICT and Future
Planning, and includes a national startup promotion
program to encourage more people to become entrepreneurs,
free entrepreneurship education for primary, secondary,
high school and university students and the general public,
conversion of 1,000 public libraries into new “innovation
centres” to incubate startup ideas and engage the population
in entrepreneurial thinking, and funding for internships to
place university students within growing startups.
CHARACTERISTICS OF COUNTRIES WITH
SUCCESSFUL ENTREPRENEURIAL CULTURES
A review of the above policies and programs show that
countries that emphasise high-impact entrepreneurship have
a number of common attributes:
` A national strategy that places high-impact
entrepreneurship as an economic priority and seeks to
address known obstacles
` A national agency with oversight of innovation and
entrepreneurship programs
` Clear emphasis on high-impact entrepreneurship (as
opposed to small business entrepreneurship)
` Government ensures that funding arrangements with
universities drive investment in establishing and delivering
student entrepreneurship programs that operate at
meaningful scale and in line with best practice
` A wide range of complementary programs that address
multiple aspects of the entrepreneurial ecosystem,
including education, access to fnance, culture, technical
skills and startup expertise
` Aim to engage young people in high-impact
entrepreneurship via school and university-based
programs
` Deliberate eforts to connect to global markets
and develop a born-global culture in which
companies by default set out to tackle global rather
than domestic markets.
16 BOOSTING HIGH-IMPACT ENTREPRENEURSHIP IN AUSTRALIA
BARRIERS TO ENTREPRENEURSHIP
IN AUSTRALIA
Te following section explores some of the specifc barriers
to boosting high-impact entrepreneurship in Australia, in
comparison with the environments that have proved most
conducive to startup activity overseas.
Findings are drawn from a literature review supported
by interviews with more than 40 stakeholders including
university executive leaders, current students and
graduates, investors, entrepreneurs and those involved
in delivering university-based student entrepreneurship
programs.
THE ENTREPRENEUR CHICKEN-AND-EGG
PROBLEM
It has been postulated
55
by futurist and author Paul
Wallbank that if Bill Gates had been born in Australia he
would most likely not have become a successful technology
entrepreneur, but would instead have been encouraged
to pursue a “safe” career such as law, due to our strong
cultural aversion to risk, our lack of regard for successful
entrepreneurs and our strong endorsement of people who
conform to societal norms. Wallbank goes further to suggest
that a successful Australian Bill Gates would have also been
a property speculator as a consequence of Australia’s tax
laws artifcially incentivising investment in property ahead
of other asset classes, despite property having no impact on
economic value creation.
In reality, successful companies like Microsoft have played an
important role in producing hundreds of new entrepreneurs
in locations such as Seattle.
As noted by Paul Graham, founder of Silicon Valley’s most
successful startup accelerator, Y Combinator, “Startups beget
startups”.
56
Startup hubs grow when founders and employees
of successful startups leave to create new startups and invest
in others. Experienced serial entrepreneurs also play an
important role as mentors to less experienced founders.
Tis virtuous cycle, coupled with a strong pro-
entrepreneurship culture and supportive economic
environment, has been instrumental in the continued
growth of the startup hotspots such as Silicon Valley,
New York and Tel Aviv.
In more recent times, countries such as Singapore, Sweden
and the UK have introduced deliberate measures to
stimulate the formation of startups, including education
programs to produce more entrepreneurs, and injecting
successful entrepreneurs from overseas to help bridge the
expertise gap whilst the local talent pool matures to a point
where its growth can become self-sustaining.
Australia has historically had a limited focus on high-impact
entrepreneurship as a driver of economic growth, and
tech startups are a relatively new phenomenon, with most
elements of the country’s startup ecosystem having come
into existence in the last fve years.
Without a steady supply of experienced and successful
entrepreneurs advising frst-time startup founders, we risk a
continuation of the current situation in which much of the
advice given to startup founders is fawed because it comes
from well-intentioned individuals who simply do not have
frst-hand experience in building and scaling technology
companies globally.
One of the secrets of entrepreneurial success is to be risk-inclined. I walked away from my funded
postdoctoral fellowship at the ANU many years ago to start a one-man company in America.
Another secret of success is to know how to build the product that you want to sell. When I left
the university I had in my head all the knowledge that I needed to design my initial product. Te
combination of taking a risk and being an expert worked well, and was followed by more than
twenty years of corporate growth.
Dr Alan Finkel AO FTSE
Chancellor of Monash University and President of ATSE (Australian Academy of Technological
Sciences and Engineering)
17 CHAPTER 2 LEARNING FROM THE GLOBAL LEADERS
UNIVERSITIES DON’T SEE PRODUCING
ENTREPRENEURS AS THEIR ROLE
Compared with universities in the best-performing
entrepreneurial countries, Australian universities generally
do not see producing entrepreneurs as a major part of their
role. Tis view was consistently expressed in interviews with
stakeholders in the university sector.
As a result, they generally do not invest in programs to create
and nurture high-impact entrepreneurs to the same degree
as universities in some of the global leaders.
Most university graduate career days appear to be
dominated by traditional employers, and many career
guidance ofcers appear to have little awareness of being
an entrepreneur as a career. Indeed, most of the messaging
universities direct to the student population and the
wider community focuses on the importance of preparing
graduates for the present “workforce”.
By contrast, universities in some countries see themselves
as having a central role in educating and cultivating
future entrepreneurs. Te entrepreneurial track record
of universities such as Stanford and MIT should be an
exemplar. Tese two universities have produced graduates
who have gone on to create over 65,000 companies that
together generate nearly US$6 trillion in annual revenues
and employ around nine million people, many in high-value,
knowledge-intensive jobs.
57, 58
Every Australian vice-chancellor should ask: “Are
there students at my university who are working on
what could become the next Atlassian (or Radiata
or Cochlear or ResMed), and what are we doing to
help them?”
Some US universities such as CalTech, Stanford and
Berkeley fnd that as much as 20 per cent of all students, and
more than 50 per cent of computer science students, form a
startup before they graduate.
55
According to Jerome Engel, who established the Lester
Center for Entrepreneurship at UC Berkeley, in the
United States there is “no longer any debate about whether
entrepreneurship can be taught or whether universities have
a role in fostering entrepreneurs.”
60
In comparison, students at most Australian universities
receive little or no exposure to the idea of forming a
startup, particularly in STEM disciplines outside of
computer science. Coupled with our low overall cultural
predisposition to creating tech startups, this illustrates
the challenge to raising the level of high-impact
entrepreneurship in Australia.
Twenty years ago in the United States the Kaufman Foundation began providing grants to
universities to infuse entrepreneurship throughout the curriculum. Entrepreneurial concepts were
taught in a variety of formats—during student orientation, in the classroom, through business plan
competitions, in entrepreneurship clubs, via space and support for student entrepreneurs creating
companies, through alumni who came back as visiting entrepreneurs and mentors, and sometimes
as investors in student companies. We need to develop such a system in Australia.
Jana Matthews
ANZ Chair in Business Growth and Director, Centre for Business Growth,
University of South Australia Business School
18 BOOSTING HIGH-IMPACT ENTREPRENEURSHIP IN AUSTRALIA
MOST UNIVERSITIES LACK AN
ENTREPRENEURIAL CULTURE
Te importance of creating a pro-entrepreneurship culture
cannot be overstated. While infuencing culture on a national
level is not trivial, there are a number of known levers that
are available to government and individual institutions.
Before seeking to infuence culture it is important
to fully understand the prevailing culture and the
cultural changes that are desired. Table 3 outlines some
observations regarding the cultural diferences between
startups and universities.
Without a culture that supports and celebrates
entrepreneurship, it is less likely that graduates will be drawn
to new venture creation.
Universities whose entrepreneurial aspirations are driven
by senior leadership have the greatest chance of shifting
attitudes toward entrepreneurship.
MOST ACADEMICS HAVE LIMITED EXPERIENCE
OF ENTREPRENEURSHIP
Te quality of student entrepreneurship courses depends
heavily on the experience of those teaching the course.
Involving educators who have frst-hand experience in
startups has been shown to deliver better outcomes than
courses delivered by those with only academic experience.
Unfortunately in Australia most academics teaching
entrepreneurship courses do not have frst-hand experience
in a startup and therefore deliver courses that are heavy on
theory and light on applied content.
Many are generalist business school teachers or researchers
with a primarily academic interest in the topic of
entrepreneurship.
One of the reasons for this is that Australia does not have a
rich history of high-impact entrepreneurship, and very few
academics have left the university system to pursue their own
startup ideas.
ENTREPRENEURSHIP TEACHING IS OFTEN
FOCUSED ON BUSINESS STUDENTS
Historically most entrepreneurship courses in Australian
universities have been taught by business schools, whose
expertise and focus mostly lies on working for companies
and organisations.
However, most business schools do ofer entrepreneurship
subjects at an undergraduate and postgraduate level.
Such courses are taken mainly by business and commerce
students, and in many universities there has been relatively
little emphasis on providing entrepreneurship training to
students in STEM disciplines. Te exception is perhaps
courses in research commercialisation—which overlaps with,
but is not the same as entrepreneurship.
Where entrepreneurship is taught outside the business
school, it is often siloed in individual faculties or schools,
making it difcult to engage meaningful numbers of
students, and preventing the course from reaching a scale at
which it can attract and retain high-quality external lecturers
or achieve economies of scale.
A review of university entrepreneurship education programs
conducted in 2014 by Professor Tim Mazzarol of the
University of Western Australia
61
found that 90 per cent
of Australian universities teach entrepreneurship courses at
postgraduate and 95 per cent at undergraduate level, and
that these are mainly delivered by academic staf in business
schools. It also found that programs tend to focus on small
businesses rather than high-impact entrepreneurship, and
Table 3: Some cultural differences between startups and universities
Startups Universities
Develop products quickly, launch early, high tolerance for
imperfection and failure, iterate often and improve based on
user feedback.
“Move fast and break things.”—Facebook company motto
“If you are not embarrassed by the ?rst version of your
?rst product, you’ve launched too late.”—Reid Hoffman,
Founder of LinkedIn
Longer timeframes, deliberate action, risk averse.
Publish papers when they are as close to perfect as possible,
since research reputation and funding hinge almost
exclusively on the quality of published papers.
19 CHAPTER 2 LEARNING FROM THE GLOBAL LEADERS
often use existing companies as case studies rather than
providing students with experiential learning opportunities
such as creating their own venture or taking on an internship.
THE VALUE OF RESEARCH IS CONCEIVED
TOO NARROWLY
Knowledge creation through research is vital to
economic growth. As noted by Norman Augustine (past
Chairman and CEO of Lockheed Martin Corporation and
Co-Chair, American Academy of Arts & Sciences), science
and technology are responsible for around two thirds of
growth in GDP in the United States, despite the fact that
scientists and engineers comprise only fve per cent of the
workforce.
62, 63
Fundamental research can lead to important discoveries
and scientifc breakthroughs that over time can enable the
development of new products and even entire industries. In
Australia, the wireless LAN technology commercialised by
CSIRO arose from radioastronomy research in the 1990s.
Licensing the technology internationally has generated over
A$430 million in royalty income to Australia, and this would
not have been possible were it not for the important role
of government as a provider of patient capital to fund the
underlying research.
64
Australian universities are profcient at licensing research
outcomes to industry, having executed a total of 431 licence
agreements in 2013. However, according to the latest
National Survey of Research Commercialisation, only
22 university spinout companies were formed in 2013
(i.e. new companies based on intellectual property developed
at the university), down from 47 in 2000, with only 159
spinouts having been formed in total since 2000.
65
Although the survey data is imperfect and likely excludes
companies with less direct connections to universities, this
rate of spinout formation equates to around one spinout
company per Australian university every four years, which
is a very low number given the university sector’s annual
research budget in STEM disciplines of A$7 billion.
66

In contrast, the top 10 performing universities in the UK
(where spinout creation is measured and rewarded under
the Research Excellence Framework) created 21 spinout
companies a year over the period 2010-2012, or an average
of two spinouts per institution per annum.
67
It is important, however, not to confuse entrepreneurship
with commercialisation of IP assets—as highlighted in
Table 4.
Commercialisation can involve entrepreneurship where a
new company is formed as the vehicle to take the technology
to market, although as noted earlier most commercialisation
activity in Australia centres on licensing of IP rights rather
than spinout formation. A low rate of spinout formation
means we are forfeiting much of the economic impact that
could be gained from research.
Table 4: Differences between commercialisation of IP assets and entrepreneurship
Commercialisation Entrepreneurship
Transactional—focuses on transferring IP rights in return for
?nancial gain
Enabling—focuses on supporting new business creation
University’s primary motivation is to generate additional
revenue to the university by monetising an IP asset
University’s primary motivation is broader economic growth
by supporting the creation of new businesses
Focused on technological innovation as the basis for value
creation
May be based on either technology or business model
innovation
Focus on Publicly Funded Research Organisations
(PFRO)-owned IP
Focus on idea regardless of IP ownership
Academic typically has limited ongoing involvement beyond
transferring know-how and providing research capacity
Academic (or student) is typically the founder and heavily
involved in the company going forward.
20 BOOSTING HIGH-IMPACT ENTREPRENEURSHIP IN AUSTRALIA
An overly narrow focus on commercialising research can
also lead policymakers and university leaders to overlook the
breadth of opportunity to build businesses that are based on
the skills and capabilities of STEM graduates and students
rather than on university research per se.
Some of the most valuable companies in the world are
based on business model innovation, harnessing existing
technologies (such as the internet) rather than developing
new technology as the basis for their competitive advantage.
It is therefore important to temper any discussion of the
economic impact from research with an acknowledgement
that high-impact entrepreneurship can produce companies
based on STEM skills as well as on publicly funded research.
A strong connection between university attendance and
startup activity is already evident in Australia, albeit with a
gap between graduation and frst business creation.
In 2014, 430 current Australian startup founders were
surveyed for Startup Muster,
68
the largest survey of the
Australian startup community. Te survey found that 84 per
cent of Australian startup founders have been to university,
and the average age of startup founders is 36—suggesting
that many startup founders choose to enter the workforce
before founding a startup (Figures 5 and 6).
Figure 5: Age of Australian startup founders
60+ 1%
1%
2%
<20
55–59
50–54
45–49
40–44
35–39
30–34
25–29
20–24
5%
8%
16%
16%
25%
21%
5%
Source: Startup Muster (used with permission)
Figure 6: Educational attainment of startup founders
Postgraduate
Degree 37%
Vocational
Certi?cate 6%
Undergraduate
Degree 47%
High School 10%
Source: Startup Muster (used with permission)
21 CHAPTER 2 LEARNING FROM THE GLOBAL LEADERS
REFERENCES
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Engineering and Mathematics: Australia’s Future, (2014),
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38 B. L. Herrmann, J. Gauthier, D. Holtschke, R. Berman,
M. Marner, Te global startup ecosystem ranking 2015,
(2015),p.23, http://startup-ecosystem.compass.co/
ser2015/
39 K. Schwab, World Economic Forum, Te Global
Competitiveness Report 2014–2015, (2015),p.20,
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40 Cornell University, INSEAD and WIPO, Te
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41 C. Kinner, StartupAUS, Crossroads, (2014),p.61, https://
startupaus.org/resources/crossroads-report
42 US Small Business Administration, About Small Business
Innovation Research (SBIR), (2014), https://www.sbir.gov/
about/about-sbir
43 W. E. Torrance et al., Entrepreneurship Education Comes
of Age on Campus: Te Challenges and Rewards of Bringing
Entrepreneurship to Higher Education. (2013). http://
papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2307987
44 Higher Education Funding Council for England,
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hefce.ac.uk/kess/heif/
45 Higher Education Funding Council for England
(Public and Corporate Economics Consultants),
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Knowledge,exchange,and,skills/HEIF/HEIF11-15-
FullReport.pdf
46 C. Kinner, StartupAUS, Crossroads, (2014), p.24, https://
startupaus.org/resources/crossroads-report
47 D. Senor, S. Singer, Start-up nation: Te story of Israel ’s
economic miracle, (Random House LLC, 2011).
48 R. Powell, Lessons from Israel: How a potent start-up
superpower was launched, (2013), http://www.startupsmart.
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boosted-by-government-initiatives-says-expert.html
49 Ministry of Economy, State of Israel, Venture capital in
Israel, (2013), http://www.investinisrael.gov.il/NR/exeres/
A19A138D-87A7-416B-8D62-1C968E035E13.htm
50 G. Press, Forbes, Start-Up Nation News: Israeli Startups
Acquired And Funded In October, (2013), http://www.
forbes.com/sites/gilpress/2013/11/04/start-up-nation-
news-israeli-startups-acquired-and-funded-in-october/
51 National Research Foundation, Prime Minister’s Ofce,
Singapore, National Framework for Research, Innovation
and Enterprise, (2014), http://www.nrf.gov.sg/innovation-
enterprise/national-framework-for-research-innovation-
and-enterprise
52 National Research Foundation, Prime Minister’s Ofce,
Singapore, Research, Innovation and Enterprise (RIE)
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ecosystem/rie-2015
53 National Research Foundation, Prime Minister’s Ofce,
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enterprise-milestones
54 C. Kinner, StartupAUS, Crossroads, (2014), p.24, https://
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55 P. Wallbank, Decoding the new economy: Society and
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australia/
56 P. Graham, How to be Silicon Valley, keynote paper
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paulgraham.com/siliconvalley.html
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58 P. Cohan, Forbes, Stanford’s $2.7 Trillion Economic Jolt
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economic-jolt-beats-mits-2-trillion/
59 European Commission, A manifesto for entrepreneurship
and innovation to power growth in the EU (2013), http://
ec.europa.eu/digital-agenda/en/news/manifesto-
entrepreneurship-and-innovation-power-growth-eu
60 J. Engel, Te Berkley Blog, Tree challenges: Taking
entrepreneurship & innovation education beyond the
classroom, (2015), http://blogs.berkeley.edu/2015/07/29/
three-challenges-taking-entrepreneurship-innovation-
education-beyond-the-classroom/
22 BOOSTING HIGH-IMPACT ENTREPRENEURSHIP IN AUSTRALIA
61 T. Mazzarol, How do Australia’s universities engage
with entrepreneurship and small business? Centre for
Entrepreneurial Management and Innovation (CEMI)
Discussion Paper, (2014), http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/
ssrn.2428008
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goinggoinggone
63 American Academy of Arts and Sciences, Restoring the
foundation: Te Vital Role of Research in Preserving
the American Dream, (2014), https://www.aau.edu/
WorkArea/DownloadAsset.aspx?id=15491
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Te Australian, (2013). http://www.theaustralian.com.au/
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end/story-e6frgakx-1226768161114
65 Department of Industry, Innovation and Science, National
Survey of Research Commercialisation, (2013), http://www.
industry.gov.au/innovation/reportsandstudies/Pages/
NationalSurveyofResearchCommercialisation.aspx
66 Ofce of the Chief Scientist, Benchmarking Australian
Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics, (2014),
Australian Government, Canberra, Australia.
67 Spinout creation. Spinouts – from Research to Market,
8 (2013), http://www.spinoutsuk.co.uk/Downloads/
PraxisUnico_Spinouts_UK_Quarterly_Journal_issue_8.pdf
68 Startup Muster, Survey of Australian startup community,
(2014), https://www.startupmuster.com
CHAPTER 3
ENTREPRENEURSHIP SKILLS
24 BOOSTING HIGH-IMPACT ENTREPRENEURSHIP IN AUSTRALIA
THE “ENTREPRENEURS-ARE-BORN”
MYTH
It is a common myth that individuals either “have what it
takes” to be an entrepreneur, or they do not. Proponents
of this view would argue that those people with the right
make-up will fnd their way into entrepreneurship, while the
rest of population should follow other career paths.
Fortunately, this approach does not refect how individuals
actually become entrepreneurs. Tere is evidence that
exposing young people to entrepreneurship, and equipping
them with practical skills, not just plants the idea of
becoming an entrepreneur but also results in tangible
increases in the level of high-impact entrepreneurship and
creates signifcant economic impact.
70
Asking whether teaching practical entrepreneurship skills
will make people more successful as entrepreneurs is rather
like asking whether leadership training improves leadership
skills and makes people better leaders. Te answer is, of
course, that practical skills and knowledge can be learned and
applied in entrepreneurship just as in any other discipline,
and this does increase the likelihood of success.
69
A cohort study of 836 students from the National
University of Singapore have demonstrated that exposure
to entrepreneurship leads to increased entrepreneurial
interest and increased entrepreneurial behaviour, and that
practical skills can be taught to improve the likelihood of an
individual entrepreneur being successful.
70
Te ecosystems whose entrepreneurs are most successful
are also the ones in which entrepreneurial training is
readily available—either as formal training or via
peer-based learning.
WHAT FACTORS PRODUCE ENTREPRENEURS?
High-impact entrepreneurs are a product of multiple
internal and external factors. Figure 7 and Table 5 illustrate
the factors whose presence positively infuences whether
an individual becomes an entrepreneur. Although not all
are required, the presence of most or all of these factors
increases the likelihood that an individual will pursue an
entrepreneurial pathway.
Figure 7: Factors that in?uence whether an individual
becomes an entrepreneur
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KEY POINTS
` Exposure to high-impact entrepreneurship during university has been shown to lead to greater levels of startup
formation.
` Entrepreneurship skills can be taught.
` Te skills needed for high-impact entrepreneurship are substantially diferent to those needed for small business
entrepreneurship.
` Te most efective entrepreneurship education combines classroom-based learning with experiential programs such as
incubators, accelerators, internships and overseas placements.
25 CHAPTER 3 ENTREPRENEURSHIP SKILLS
Table 5: Internal and external conditions that in?uence entrepreneurship decisions
Condition Importance
Local cultural attitudes towards
entrepreneurship
Countries in which high-impact entrepreneurship is celebrated tend to have a higher
rate of high impact entrepreneurs.
Individual personality Certain personality traits predispose an individual to high-impact entrepreneurship.
Role models Successful young entrepreneurs act as role models and can in?uence career choices by
providing young people with tangible evidence that people like them can succeed as
entrepreneurs.
Exposure at school, university and
in the family
Familiarity with the concept of startups helps to avoid common misconceptions.
Practical entrepreneurial skills Acquiring practical skills through education and experience increases competence,
reduces fear of failure and makes it easier to “just have a go”.
Supportiveness of local startup
ecosystem
Individuals assess the prevailing ecosystem conditions and judge the supportiveness of
the ecosystem before deciding whether or not to launch a startup.
THE ROLE OF INDIVIDUAL PERSONALITY
Not everyone is cut out to be an entrepreneur, especially a
founder of a high-growth technology company.
It has been proposed that there are six core attributes
that make some people more likely to succeed as an
entrepreneur.
71, 72
Tey are:
1. Need for achievement: Consistently sets high personal
standards, actively seeks opportunities to execute ideas
rather than just having ideas.
2. Self-confdence and internal locus of control: Views
oneself as capable and in control of situations; feels
empowered to tackle difcult problems.
3. Need for autonomy: Prefers to direct own work
rather than work for others or in highly structured
organisations.
4. Tolerance for ambiguity and risk: Comfortable working
in environments where the path to success is unknown
and there is a high risk of failure. Tis often manifests in
a greater preparedness to “burn the ships” by quitting a
safe job in order to commit to a startup opportunity.
5. Creativity: Well-developed creative thinking and
problem-solving skills.
6. Conscientiousness: Persistent even in the face
of signifcant obstacles and willing to continue in
challenging conditions in order to succeed.
Investors in startups also look for specifc attributes in
founders they are considering backing. According to
Gary Visontay, General Partner of Sydney Seed Fund,
founders who are most likely to succeed, and therefore are
viewed favourably by investors, have the following four
“EPIC” qualities:
73
` Execution: Consistently follows through on ideas and
opportunities to completion, rather than having a large
number of ideas foating around or working on many
unfnished projects for extended period.
` Perspective: Has a realistic and fexible view of the
business, the risks and the level of efort needed to
succeed, has good intuition, and is willing to change
direction based on customer feedback. Does not hold
a naïve or narrow view of the ease of success and is not
so wedded to the idea that they will pursue it despite
evidence that change is needed.
` Intellect: Has the ability to learn new skills quickly and to
become profcient at a wide range of tasks.
` Communication: Can articulate the company’s strategy
clearly, succinctly and convincingly to employees, investors
and customers.
26 BOOSTING HIGH-IMPACT ENTREPRENEURSHIP IN AUSTRALIA
ATTITUDES CAN BE SHAPED
According to Tina Seelig, Professor at the Stanford School
of Engineering and director of the Stanford Technology
Ventures Program, “entrepreneurship education empowers
young people to see the world as opportunity rich.”
74
Stanford, like many other universities, has made a conscious
choice to expose students to a wide range of career paths
that includes becoming an entrepreneur and to provide
them with sufcient practical training and support so if they
choose to pursue startup opportunities they are well prepared
for what lies ahead.
Signifcant research efort has gone into examining
whether teaching entrepreneurship in universities leads to
more entrepreneurs. Most of these studies have focused on
small business entrepreneurship, but several have looked
specifcally at the efect of entrepreneurship education
and exposure to the creation of high impact technology-
based companies.
One of the largest such studies was conducted at the
National University of Singapore (NUS)
75
and followed
836 NUS students from a wide range of disciplines who
took part in (a) traditional classroom-based entrepreneurship
education programs, and (b) experiential entrepreneurship
programs such as incubators, business idea competitions,
mentoring programs and startup internships.
Te study examined the impact of the two types of
entrepreneurial learning on the students’ entrepreneurial
attitudes (i.e. how interested they are in starting a
company in the future) and entrepreneurial actions
(i.e. whether they actually took concrete steps toward
launching a new venture).
Te NUS study reached two important conclusions:
1. Participation in classroom-based entrepreneurship
programs positively infuences entrepreneurial attitudes,
but not actions.
2. Participation in experiential entrepreneurship programs
positively infuences both entrepreneurial attitudes
and actions.
A similar study by the Kaufman Foundation
76
in the US
found that university students who took part in experiential
entrepreneurship programs (such as an internship in a tech
startup or a venture capital frm that invests in startups) in
conjunction with classroom-based courses were three times
more likely to be involved in the creation of a new venture
than the rest of the student population.
Tese fndings have three important implications for
teaching entrepreneurship:
1. Classroom-based entrepreneurship education
programs by themselves have little efect on rates of
entrepreneurship.
2. Classroom-based programs are of course still important
because they increase the knowledge and skills that
students can put into practice if and when they actually
start their own company, or as an employee in an
existing company.
3. Experiential entrepreneurship education programs
are vital if we want to produce more entrepreneurs.
Tey provide an environment in which students can
experience aspects of actually forming a startup in a
relatively safe environment and with regular support
and guidance.
Specifcally, experiential programs help students to take
concrete action by:
` Cementing learnings from classroom-based courses and
providing context in which to apply the theory
` Allowing them to experiment with the idea of
entrepreneurship as a career path
` Providing role models in the form of mentors and coaches
` Increasing confdence in their ability to succeed by
allowing them to meet peers who are running successful
startups
` Reducing their fear of failure by allowing them to fail fast
in a safe environment
` Expanding their professional network via exposure to the
entrepreneurial ecosystem outside the university.
27 CHAPTER 3 ENTREPRENEURSHIP SKILLS
ENTREPRENEURIAL ATTITUDES DEVELOP EARLY
Although this report has a focus on the role of universities,
it is important to refect on the role that schools play in
exposing young minds to the concept of entrepreneurship.
A Dutch study examined the efect of entrepreneurship
education on primary school students’ skills and attitudes.
Te study found a signifcant positive efect of early
entrepreneurship education on skills such as persistence,
creativity and pro-activity. Tis evaluation of primary school
graduate performance suggests that early entrepreneurship
education contributes signifcantly to developing such non-
cognitive entrepreneurial skills.
77
A separate longitudinal study examining the efects of
participation of youths in the Juvenile Achievement
Young Enterprise ( JA-YE) programs across Europe,
found that by the age of 25, the alumni demonstrated a
15 per cent rate of startup formation. In comparison, the
average rate of startup formation among the European
population was 5–6 per cent.
78
Heightening the curiosity intrinsic to most children and
exposing them to the basic principles of business creation
in school is an efective way of stimulating their interest
in entrepreneurship, developing a sense of initiative and
developing a mindset of creating jobs rather than applying
for them. Tis exposure also leads to a greater level of
awareness and receptiveness to entrepreneurship programs
during university years.
Best practice programs in schools encourage children to
ask themselves “What do you want to create?” rather than
“What do you want to be?”, and are more about opening
their eyes to opportunities than about teaching complex
subject matter.
WHAT SKILLS ARE NEEDED TO BE A SUCCESSFUL
ENTREPRENEUR?
To be successful, startup teams must possess a range of skills
spanning product development, sales, marketing, customer
acquisition, capital raising, fnance, law, leadership and
team building.
Te reality is that most startup founders do not have all of
the required skills, and even when a high-quality team with
diverse skill sets and backgrounds is assembled it is likely
that there will be gaps in the capabilities of the team.
In 2014, Startup Muster surveyed 430 Australian startup
founders and found that 58 per cent had not founded a
startup before.
79
Given the relative immaturity of Australia’s
startup ecosystem and the large number of inexperienced
entrepreneurs, it is important that educational programs
focus on imparting core skills.
Experience with numerous incubator programs has shown
that entrepreneurs often have a limited understanding of
the fundamentals of launching and growing a business, and
as a result mentors end up spending much of their time not
mentoring, but teaching fundamental concepts to startup
founders, which is highly inefcient.
Entrepreneurship must be enthusiastically encouraged and embraced. Kids need to know that
starting and building a business can be a fun, rewarding life path. Education on how to become
an entrepreneur has to start early at home and in school when kids frst set up their roadside
lemonade stand, and extend to university where they can actually experience many aspects of real
entrepreneurship and high-growth company formation.
Bill Bartee
Partner, Blackbird Ventures
28 BOOSTING HIGH-IMPACT ENTREPRENEURSHIP IN AUSTRALIA
A large number of courses have been developed in recent years to provide a solid practical grounding to startup founders and
teams. A summary of some of the most commonly taught content is provided in Table 6 to illustrate the core skills required
by high-impact entrepreneurs.
Table 6: Core skills required by high-impact entrepreneurs
Skill / topic Importance
Business model innovation Developing a viable business model is an essential task in the early days of any startup
in order to ensure that the business meets customer needs, can scale rapidly and can
become pro?table.
Companies developing technology-based products and services are often also
developing new and untested business models, and it is therefore essential that these
entrepreneurs have a strong grounding in business model innovation.
Tools such as the Business Model Canvas,
80
Lean Canvas
81
and Validation Board
82
are
commonly used to guide entrepreneurs through the process of articulating, testing and
validating hypotheses on which their business idea is based and to develop a business
model that will enable the company to scale rapidly.
Product development The Lean Startup approach to product development is important in any company
that is developing new technology-based products. This approach centres on rapid
iteration of the product based on customer feedback as a means of ensuring the
product meets the needs of the target market.
As noted by Ash Maurya in his book Running Lean: Iterate from Plan A to a Plan That
Works, a large proportion of startups that fail do so because they build products that
do not fully match the needs of their target market.
83

Sales Startup founders require strong sales skills, not just to sell their product to customers,
but also to sell equity in the business to investors in return for funding, and to
prospective employees who typically accept a lower salary than they would receive in a
larger company in return for a stake in the business.
Many startup founders with technical backgrounds lack sales experience, and this is
therefore a core skill that startup founders need to learn.
Financial management Managing ?nancial resources is a critical activity during rapid growth. Running out of
cash is one of the most common causes of startup failure, and often stems from a lack
of ?nancial acumen in the early stages of growth, and before the company is large
enough to have a dedicated CFO.
Key skills needed by startup founders include understanding ?nancial statements,
managing cash?ow, creating ?nancial forecasts and reporting to shareholders.
Legal management Founders of high-growth companies need to have an appreciation for a range of legal
issues spanning topics such as employment law, capital raising, company directorship,
solvency and competition law.
Whilst startups can seek external legal advice, it is critical that founders have a
suf?cient grasp of the issues to know when they need advice, and also to ensure they
are not being over-advised.
For some companies, regulatory issues are also critical—for example in biotech,
medical devices, aerospace, aviation and providers of ?nancial products and services.
Intellectual property management Protection and enforcement of IP rights is an important theme for many technology-
based companies. Avoiding infringement of IP rights owned by others is also an
important topic.
Startup founders need to have a broad awareness of IP management concepts in order
to maximise the strategic value of the IP assets owned by the company and minimise
the risk of litigation by larger competitors.
29 CHAPTER 3 ENTREPRENEURSHIP SKILLS
Skill / topic Importance
Platform economics A growing number of companies are engaging in platform-based business models in
which they do not sell a product or service, but instead provide a platform on which
others can create and exchange value via provision of products and services.
Platform-based businesses are generally engaging in two or more sided markets, and
are common among internet businesses spanning a wide range of industries.
In his book Platform Scale: How an emerging business model helps startups build large
empires with minimum investment, Sangeet Paul Choudary discusses the importance
of understanding the economic principles of platforms and notes that many startups
fail due to a lack of understanding of these principles.
84
Teaching platform economics
to startup founders is therefore an important step in preparing them for launching
platform-based businesses.
Capital raising Most high-growth companies need to raise external capital from investors such as angel
investors or venture capital funds to fuel their growth. The process of raising capital is
complex and requires an understanding of how different types of investors work, as well
as a grasp of concepts such as portfolio theory, capitalisation tables and dilution, and an
understanding of the ?nancial and legal terminology involved in ?nancing.
A recent US study by Professor Tom Eisenmann of Harvard Business School analysed
the funding rounds of 200 startups that had collectively raised A$500 million from
investors.
85
The study found that the average seed funding round involves contact with
58 investors, 40 investor presentations and takes an average of 12.5 weeks to raise
an average of A$1.8 million. It also found that many startup founders make common
mistakes in pitching to investors, and that they could signi?cantly improve the ef?ciency
and success rate of fundraising by acquiring a better understanding of the process.
The same challenges exist in Australia, but with the added drawback that there are
fewer investors and a less sophisticated funding environment.
STEM students (and indeed most business students) are not exposed to these
concepts, and as a result many fail to raise capital and those that do ?nd that it takes
longer than it should, restricting the growth potential of their business.
Employee Share Ownership Plans
(ESOPs)
ESOPs are an important mechanism by which startup founders incentivise and reward
employees. The scope to use ESOPs in Australia has been greatly improved as a result
of the government’s recent changes to the tax treatment of options. However, the use
of ESOPs remains a relatively complex area and one that startup founders need to
understand.
Building and managing teams High-growth companies often need to recruit large numbers of staff in short periods
of time to maintain their rate of growth. By way of example, in mid-2013 Atlassian
announced plans to recruit 100 product development staff in a three-month period.
86

Similarly, Cochlear added an average of 175 new staff per year over an eight-year
period to 2012.
87
During the early stages of growth, startup founders need to have strong skills in
recruitment, selection, management and leadership of rapidly growing teams. These
skills are rarely taught to students in STEM disciplines.
Managing rapid international
growth
A feature of most high-growth companies in any sector is that they are competing in
international markets. The ability to manage rapid international growth requires an
understanding of market dynamics, pricing strategies, foreign exchange, international
legal and regulatory issues, cultural differences and operational matters associated
with establishing a presence in overseas locations.
Immersion programs such as Startup Catalyst
88
are a valuable means of exposing
students to overseas markets and allowing them to gain a ?rst-hand appreciation of
how those markets work.
30 BOOSTING HIGH-IMPACT ENTREPRENEURSHIP IN AUSTRALIA
As an active investor in Australian startups I consistently see skills gaps in the startup founders I
meet with. Te most common gaps are a lack of fnancial acumen, lack of understanding of how to
build and manage teams, and a limited understanding of how to rapidly scale a company beyond
an initial concept. I strongly believe that universities have an important role in equipping graduates
with these sorts of skills, and doing so across all disciplines including STEM. An investment in
building these skills in graduates would lead to many more investable startups and make a large
contribution to the growth of the Australian technology sector.
Garry Visontay
General Partner, Sydney Seed Fund
Many of the topics in Table 6 are of little relevance to small business entrepreneurs as their companies (by defnition) do not
experience rapid growth or grow via external investment. Conversely, many general business courses that might be of value to
small business owners would be of limited value to high impact entrepreneurs.
31 CHAPTER 3 ENTREPRENEURSHIP SKILLS
REFERENCES
69 M. Lackéus, Entrepreneurship In Education, (Organisation
for Economic Cooperation and Development, 2015).
http://www.oecd.org/cfe/leed/BGP_Entrepreneurship-
in-Education.pdf
70 Y.-P. Ho, P.-C. Low, P.-K. Wong, Do University
Entrepreneurship Programs Infuence Students’
Entrepreneurial Behavior? An Empirical Analysis of
University Students in Singapore. Innovative Pathways
for University Entrepreneurship in the 21st Century,
(Advances in the Study of Entrepreneurship, Innovation
& Economic Growth 24, 65-87, (2014). http://
www.emeraldinsight.com/doi/full/10.1108/S1048-
473620140000024003
71 D. Stokes, N. Wilson, M. Mador, Entrepreneurship.
(Cengage Learning EMEA, 2010).
72 S. Wise, B. Feld, Startup opportunities: Know when to quit
your day job. D. Heal, Ed., (FG Press, 2015).
73 G. Visontay, Startup smart, How to recognise an EPIC
start-up founder, (2013), http://www.startupsmart.com.
au/leadership/how-to-recognise-an-epic-start-up-
founder/2013112911275.html
74 T. Seelig, Blog contribution on Personal Growth
(Medium), Why it’s imperative to teach entrepreneurship,
(2014), https://medium.com/keep-learning-keep-
growing/why-it-s-imperative-we-60d545ab978b
75 Y.-P. Ho, P.-C. Low, P.-K. Wong, Do University
Entrepreneurship Programs Infuence Students’
Entrepreneurial Behavior? An Empirical Analysis of
University Students in Singapore. Innovative Pathways
for University Entrepreneurship in the 21st Century
(Advances in the Study of Entrepreneurship, Innovation
& Economic Growth 24, 65-87, (2014). http://
www.emeraldinsight.com/doi/full/10.1108/S1048-
473620140000024003
76 A. Charney, G. D. Libecap, Impact of entrepreneurship
education, (Kaufman Center for Entrepreneurial
Leadership Kansas City, MO, 2000), http://www.unm.
edu/~asalazar/Kaufman/Entrep_research/e_ed_grow.pdf
77 L.R. Huber, R. Sloof, M van Praag, Te efect of early
entrepreneurship education, Institute for the Study of
Labor, Discussion Paper No. 6512, (2012), http://dare.
uva.nl/document/2/132031
78 V. Johansen, Experiences from participation in JAYE
Company Programmes: What experiences did participants in
Company Programmes have during their time as company
founders—and what happened next? Eastern Norway
Research Institute, (2007), p.28, http://www.ostforsk.no/
wp-content/uploads/2014/11/102007.pdf
79 Startup Muster, Survey of Australian startup community,
(2014), https://www.startupmuster.com/
80 Strategyzer, Business Model Canvas, http://www.
businessmodelgeneration.com/canvas/bmc
81 Lean Stack, Lean Canvas – 1 Page Business Model,
http://leanstack.com/lean-canvas/
82 Lean Startup Machine, Validation Board - Test your
startup idea without wasting time or money, https://www.
leanstartupmachine.com/validationboard/
83 A. Maurya, Running lean: iterate from plan A to a plan that
works, (“O’Reilly Media, Inc.”, 2012).
84 S. P. Choudary, Platform Scale: How an emerging business
model helps startups build large empires with minimum
investment, (Platform Tinking Labs, 2015).
85 Docsend, T. Eisenmann, What we learned from 200
startups who raised $360 million, (2015), https://orc.
rutgers.edu/sites/orc.rutgers.edu/fles/downloads/200%20
Startups%20Who%20Raised%20360Million.pdf
86 C. Fitzsimmons, in Business Review Weekly, (2013),
http://www.brw.com.au/p/tech_growth_star_revs_next_
atlassian_IVOrGq78Q1708BKyUXD6nN
87 Te Australian Private Equity and Venture Capital
Association Limited, The Economic Impact of VC in
Australia, (2013), https://www.avcal.com.au/documents/
item/610
88 Startup Catalyst, http://www.startupcatalyst.com.au/
32 BOOSTING HIGH-IMPACT ENTREPRENEURSHIP IN AUSTRALIA
CHAPTER 4
BEST PRACTICE
ENTREPRENEURSHIP
EDUCATION
34 BOOSTING HIGH-IMPACT ENTREPRENEURSHIP IN AUSTRALIA
THE IMPORTANCE OF UNIVERSITIES
Universities have a central role in producing and training
entrepreneurs. Tose that are efective in this endeavour
generally set out to achieve the following outcomes:
` Develop an entrepreneurial culture that changes the
“traditional” attitudes of university academics, students
and graduates
` Impart practical skills that budding entrepreneurs can put
into practice
` Expand professional networks
` Facilitate access to important resources such as funding
and experienced mentors.
In Chapter 2 we considered which countries have made
signifcant investments in boosting innovation and high
impact entrepreneurship as drivers of economic growth, and
the common themes among them. In this chapter we will
consider which universities represent best practice in their
eforts to produce entrepreneurs, and review the approaches
they have in common.
Te MIT Skoltech survey, conducted in 2012, ranked
universities from around the world based on their
impact in creating and supporting an ecosystem for
entrepreneurship and innovation. It was produced from a
survey of 61 international experts and practitioners.
Te results of the survey show several familiar universities
as highly ranked (Figure 8).
89
Several of these universities
are profled in this chapter, and the reasons for their
inclusion are discussed as a means of highlighting some
common themes.
KEY POINTS
` Best practice entrepreneurship education makes a clear distinction between high-impact entrepreneurship and other
types of entrepreneurship.
` Experiential programs such as incubators and internships are more efective in encouraging students to take steps toward
starting their own businesses.
` Teaching entrepreneurship requires the active involvement of experienced entrepreneurs and active connections to the
local startup ecosystem.
` Producing technology companies requires teaching entrepreneurship skills to STEM students.
` A staged, opt-in approach to engaging students is more efective than providing a single mandatory course.
` Te “Lean Startup” approach involves rapidly testing and refning business ideas, and is more efective than having
students write business plans which usually prove to be exercises in creative writing.
` Te Lean LaunchPad course is becoming recognised as the international gold standard in entrepreneurship education,
and is based on Lean Startup principles.
` Visible support of university leadership is essential to achieving impact.
35 CHAPTER 4 BEST PRACTICE ENTREPRENEURSHIP EDUCATION
Similar observations can be made from Figure 3, which
shows that many of the universities in the MIT Skoltech
study are indeed the ones that have produced the most
startup founders.
WHAT DOES BEST PRACTICE LOOK LIKE?
Entrepreneurship education has matured greatly over the last
decade, and there has been a good deal written about what
works and what does not.
Tis section summarises some of the key learnings from
entrepreneurship education programs in universities
around the world, and provides a simple set of guidelines
that can be followed by any university seeking to stimulate
entrepreneurial thinking and behaviours among students,
and to equip them with practical entrepreneurship skills.
Recent books such as Entrepreneurship Programs and the
Modern University,
90
Teaching Entrepreneurship: A Practice-
Based Approach
91
and Te Innovative and Entrepreneurial
University
92
are valuable resources for greater detail on
specifc programs, and have been drawn upon in formulating
the fndings in this report.
CLEAR FOCUS ON HIGH GROWTH
High-growth companies are “born global”, generally
serving large global markets, as opposed to smaller
domestic markets which are typically served by small
businesses that grow at a much slower pace. Tey are also
very diferent from small businesses and social ventures, and
notwithstanding that there are many valid reasons to teach
small business entrepreneurship or social entrepreneurship,
it is essential that courses make a clear distinction between
the diferent types and set out to teach concepts that are
appropriately tailored.
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Figure 8: Universities ranked by international expert by impact on creating and supporting technology innovation
ecosystems (2012)
36 BOOSTING HIGH-IMPACT ENTREPRENEURSHIP IN AUSTRALIA
ENTREPRENEUR PROFILE—ELLIOT SMITH
Elliot is a co-founder of HSK Instruments, a startup company developing
respiratory physiotherapy products to assist sufferers of respiratory conditions
such as cystic ?brosis. Elliot Studied Electrical Engineering at The University of
Queensland and is currently completing a PhD relating to design of magnetic
resonance imaging (MRI) scanners.
Elliot chose engineering because he enjoyed making things and felt he could
make an impact on society. During his studies he worked on several “pet projects”,
but never believed any of his work could be the basis for a startup company. In
2012, Elliot presented his work on respiratory physiotherapy as part of a research
showcase event, for which he won a prize of entry into the university’s startup
incubator, ilab.
Over a six-month period in the incubator, Elliot took part in short courses on Lean
Startup principles, capital raising and investor pitching, and was given regular
mentoring and coaching from experienced local, interstate and international entrepreneurs.
Along with his co-founders (also engineering students) Elliot made the decision to form a company, HSK Instruments,
to complete development of the technology and launch a product—now named Pepster. This medical device will be
launched this year in Australia, after which the company intends launching internationally.
HSK was selected to present at the Tech23 national startup pitching event in 2013 where it won the Most Investable
Award, and also at the Hill’s Young Innovator of the Year where HSK was awarded Overall Winner at the iAwards in 2014.
Following this recognition, Elliot was selected to take part in the inaugural Startup Catalyst program, which took
twenty STEM students and recent graduates to San Francisco and Silicon Valley for a fully funded ten-day startup
immersion trip.
According to Elliot, the exposure he had to startups and high-impact entrepreneurship through the ilab incubator
and the Startup Catalyst program had a profound effect on his attitudes toward startups. It has convinced him that
a PhD does not only qualify him to pursue a career in research, but is also a valuable grounding for starting high-
growth technology companies—a career path which he is determined to pursue.
Despite having had a positive exposure to high-impact entrepreneurship during university, Elliot recognises that his
experience is rare in Australia, particularly among postgraduate STEM students. He notes that “Universities need
to be vocal in their support of startups. The same way that the best research is plastered on billboards, we should
be showing the public that our universities train people not only to work in industry but to help expand it with
businesses of their own.”
37 CHAPTER 4 BEST PRACTICE ENTREPRENEURSHIP EDUCATION
LEAN STARTUP—THE GOLD STANDARD FOR ENTREPRENEUR EDUCATION
The Lean Startup approach is based on the notion of evidence-based entrepreneurship. It sets out to quickly test
and validate assumptions behind a startup idea based on interactions with customers, rather than putting students
through the process of writing a business plan based on the assumption that they can derive a valid business model
a priori.
The businesses that bene?t most from the Lean Startup course are those that are engaging in business model
innovation, often in conjunction with technology innovation. They are developing businesses that are not replicas of
existing companies, but are pioneering a new way of doing things as they bring new technologies to market.
The principles behind the Lean Startup approach were the subject of an article by Steve Blank in the Harvard
Business Review in 2013,
93
and many international universities have now embraced Lean Startup principles as best
practice in all of their entrepreneurship programs.
The Lean LaunchPad course, developed by Steve Blank and Jerome Engel at Stanford University and UC Berkeley
in 2010, is based on Lean Startup principles and is becoming accepted as the gold standard in entrepreneurship
education. It is a highly experiential 10–12 week program that takes students in any discipline through the entire
process of developing, validating and implementing ideas for technology-based startups.
During the course, students work in teams to re?ne and test their business model hypotheses by engaging with
potential customers, and in parallel are guided through a structured format that exposes them to the basics of
developing a business model for a high-growth company.
The Lean LaunchPad does not encourage teams to start trying to build a business until they can articulate, test and
validate (or invalidate) their hypotheses. Throughout the course teams often modify their business model many times
as they improve their understanding of the customer’s needs and the market dynamics, after which they can decide
whether they have arrived at a viable and scalable business model that warrants launching a company. This approach
helps teams to identify early on if their opportunity is not commercially viable and allows for fast failure. Only once
a viable business model is developed are the teams encouraged to start working on operational plans, ?nancial
models etc.
The Lean LaunchPad culminates in a “Demo Day” in which teams present their business models and summarise their
learnings to an audience of investors and successful entrepreneurs, many of whom will be able to help the companies
to develop further. Even teams that fail to discover a viable business model are invited to present their learnings for
the bene?t of other participants.
The Lean LaunchPad is run as a “?ipped classroom” in which the students read materials or watch video lectures in
their own time, and class time is used mainly for discussion, mentoring and presentation of learnings by the teams.
The Lean LaunchPad has been successfully tailored for a number of speci?c disciplines such as biotech, cleantech,
medical devices and therapeutics. This enables teams to learn about relevant industry-speci?c issues and allows the
program to engage instructors who have deep domain knowledge and can therefore be a useful guide to the teams.
Over the last ?ve years the Lean LaunchPad has been delivered at almost every major university in the United States,
and is being adopted by universities and research institutes around the world due to its combination of quality
content and highly experiential nature.
The US government is also using the Lean LaunchPad to infuse universities and publicly funded research
organisations with an entrepreneurial mindset and provide them with practical skills. The course is delivered through
the National Science Foundation Innovation Corps, which in four years has trained over 1,500 academics and
students in STEM disciplines and is now expanding into the National Institute of Health, the Department of Energy
and other federal agencies.
94
38 BOOSTING HIGH-IMPACT ENTREPRENEURSHIP IN AUSTRALIA
EXPERIENTIAL
One of the key learnings from university programs has been that entrepreneurship education should mostly not be about
traditional classroom-based education. It should focus on giving students opportunities to experience entrepreneurship for
themselves.
As noted earlier, experiential programs have been found to positively infuence both entrepreneurial attitudes and actions,
and lead to students taking concrete steps toward starting their own ventures. Terefore, if a university’s objectives include
producing more entrepreneurs, experiential programs are vital. Table 7 shows some of the key experiential programs and
their characteristics.
Table 7: Characteristics of experiential programs of universities that have a high-impact entrepreneurial culture
What Why
Student clubs Students learn effectively from each other and often invite
experienced entrepreneurs from the external startup community to
get involved.
Student startup incubators and accelerators Coaching and mentoring is provided by experienced entrepreneurs.
Funding allows students to work intensively on their startup idea
instead of working part-time to support themselves.
Seed funds Funding to enable students to launch startups and validate their ideas
quickly. Generally best combined with an incubator or accelerator
program to ensure the startups receive expert guidance.
Internships Opportunity to see ?rst-hand what it’s like inside a high-growth
startup and work on various aspects of the business.
Startup stalls at career days Meet with other young entrepreneurs and ?nd out what startups are
all about.
Business idea competitions Give students a sense of what it is really like to develop and validate
an idea with real customers, and pitch it to investors.
Hackathons and Startup Weekends Intensive exposure to startup concepts via creation, validation,
prototyping and pitching an idea over the course of 2–3 days.
Overseas immersion programs Exposure to different and usually more mature startup ecosystems can
“infect” students with a passion for replicating the best parts of the
ecosystem they have visited.
Visits to major startup events Brief immersion in the local, interstate or overseas startup scene
builds professional networks and practical knowledge, and provides
an opportunity to road-test startup ideas with peers.
Entrepreneurs-in-Residence Embedding experienced entrepreneurs in universities provides
students with opportunities for informal mentoring and for the EIR to
get involved in multiple aspects of university entrepreneurial life.
As a leader in entrepreneurship education for the last 25 years, I can attest that the Lean
LaunchPad approach has totally revolutionized the feld. In fve years since its initial introduction
by Steve Blank at Berkeley and Stanford it has become the gold standard in higher education and
in practice as well. Adopted in the US by every major university, adopted by the National Science
Foundation (and many other agencies), and being implemented by venture capitalists and major
corporations, Lean LaunchPad has changed the vocabulary and practice of innovation across the
USA and increasingly across the world.
Jerome Engel
Founding Executive Director and Senior Fellow, Lester Center for Entrepreneurship, University of
California at Berkeley; National Faculty Director, National Science Foundation Innovation Corps
39 CHAPTER 4 BEST PRACTICE ENTREPRENEURSHIP EDUCATION
CASE STUDY: UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE, UK
The Cambridge area is widely recognised as a hub for high-tech entrepreneurial activity. It is home to around 1,500
technology companies spanning many science and technology disciplines, and over the last two decades high
impact entrepreneurship has become integrated into the local culture.
The Centre for Entrepreneurial Learning (CfEL) is the primary entrepreneurship initiative at the University of
Cambridge.
95, 96
It was originally part of the Cambridge Entrepreneurship Centre (established in 1999), and since
2003 has been part of Judge Business School. It is supported by funding of A$650,000 per annum from the British
government through the Higher Education Innovation Fund. A further A$2.2 million per annum is received from the
university and external sources such as sponsors and donors.
CfEL has a stated aim of spreading the spirit of entrepreneurship within all discipline areas at UC and the wider
community, and evangelizing and promoting high impact entrepreneurship based on science and technology.
Most of the entrepreneurship education delivered by CfEL is hands-on, extra-curricular and non-accredited, and
although the centre does deliver two curricular courses, these only teach around 90 students per annum. In contrast,
its experiential programs engage thousands of students every year, mainly through practitioner-led programs using
a “learning journey” approach in which students learn by doing and self-select into various programs based on their
own interest.
The main experiential programs delivered by CfEL are:
Enterprise Tuesday—A series of free lectures to introduce students and staff to the world of entrepreneurship, as
well as to encourage and inspire them to pursue their own entrepreneurial ambitions. Events are targeted at students
and staff who are curious about entrepreneurship and who wonder whether entrepreneurship might be of interest to
them. Enterprise Tuesday has run since 1999 and now engages around 1,700 students and staff per annum.
Enterprisers—A four-day residential program that guides participants in generating scalable business ideas from
their research, with a focus on the health sector. So far Enterprisers has engaged 1,400 students.
EnterpriseWISE—An experiential education program for female entrepreneurs in science and technology.
Participants undertake several lectures as well as working on group projects which they present to their peers and
invited mentors the end of the program.
Ignite—An intensive extra-curricular one-week course for postdoctoral students interested in establishing a startup
company to commercialise their research. The program helps students to generate business ideas based on their
research and to develop them into real startups with the help of experienced entrepreneur mentors. It culminates in
an investor pitching event and has supported over 700 participants since it started in 1999.
Accelerate Cambridge—A three-month accelerator program that combines entrepreneurship training, coaching and
mentoring, and access to a shared workspace. The program accepts teams of two or more as long as at least one
member is a Cambridge student, alumnus, or staff member. The program culminates in an investor pitching event.
Business Creation Competition—A competition run by the Cambridge University Entrepreneurs student association.
Since establishment in 1999 it has awarded over A$1 million in prize money to more than 40 startups formed by
Cambridge students and staff.
WHAT ARE THE OUTCOMES?
The University of Cambridge has had an important role in growing the entrepreneurial ecosystem in and around
Cambridge. Of the 1,500 high-tech companies in the area, approximately one third were formed as a direct result of
University of Cambridge’s entrepreneurship initiatives. Companies formed by Cambridge alumni have raised more
than A$430 million in external funding and created approximately 4,300 jobs.
CfEL currently engages around 2,000 students a year across its various entrepreneurship initiatives, and since
2003 it has run over 200 programs and events which together have engaged over 16,000 people from the
Cambridge community.
40 BOOSTING HIGH-IMPACT ENTREPRENEURSHIP IN AUSTRALIA
REACH
For student entrepreneurship programs to have a signifcant
impact on the culture of the student population, or on
attitudes toward entrepreneurship, it is essential that they
engage a large number of students.
Te universities with the most impactful entrepreneurship
programs reach thousands of students, and over time
entrepreneurship becomes woven into the fabric of the
university so that almost all students have at least a basic
awareness of the various entrepreneurship initiatives of
the university.
Efective ways of maximising reach include hosting a large
number of events that are open to the entire university
community across all disciplines, holding business idea
competitions with cash prizes, and having programs such as
entrepreneurship centres that operate continuously rather
than in discrete blocks of time.
One efective way of achieving scale and signifcant reach
is to place responsibility for student entrepreneurship in
a dedicated centre within the university that has central
funding and support and does not restrict its oferings
to students in one faculty. Examples of this approach
include the Centre for Entrepreneurial Learning at the
University of Cambridge, the Martin Trust Center for MIT
Entrepreneurship and the Bronica Entrepreneurship Centre
at Technion.
ENTREPRENEUR PROFILE: MARITA CHENG
Marita Cheng is the Founder and CEO of 2Mar Robotics. As a teenager, Marita had a keen
interest in building things. When she studied Engineering and Computer Science at the
University of Melbourne she developed a passion for robotics and mechatronics, and whilst
a student founded Robogals, a volunteer-led organisation that aims to get girls interested
in engineering and technology careers and tertiary studies. Marita was named 2012 Young
Australian of the Year for her work on Robogals.
During university, Marita worked on using robotics to assist people with limited upper limb
mobility, and in her ?nal year of university Marita started 2Mar Robotics as a vehicle to make
some of her robotics ideas a commercial reality.
Five weeks after forming 2Mar the company was accepted into the University of Melbourne’s Melbourne
Accelerator Program (MAP) which provided A$20,000 in funding and access to a range of experienced mentors
during a 12 week program.
After completion of MAP, 2Mar was awarded the Innovation Excellence Award from Tech23, Australia’s most prestigious
investor pitching competition for startups, and exhibited at CES 2014, the largest consumer electronics show in the
world, with 140,000 participants in Las Vegas, where VentureBeat named Marita “the coolest girl at CES 2014”.
Marita continues to serve on the board of Robogals Global (which has now delivered robotics workshops to 35,000
girls in nine countries), the Foundation for Young Australians, and RMIT’s New Enterprise Investment Fund, where she
helps decide on startup investments.
Marita attributes her passion for entrepreneurship to the exposure she gained through her university years including
by taking part in the Melbourne Accelerator Program. According to Marita, “There is no age limit to being an
entrepreneur. The earlier we expose students to the fun and excitement of entrepreneurship, the more entrepreneurs
we will have in Australia. Australia is a nation that is talented at making things. We need to get better at getting
out there and marketing and selling what we make. If we give STEM students the tools to sell, market and create
companies from their products, we will be creating a strong cycle of innovation and technology for our country for
years to come.”
41 CHAPTER 4 BEST PRACTICE ENTREPRENEURSHIP EDUCATION
CASE STUDY—MASSACHUSETTS INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY (MIT), USA
MIT teaches a total of 48 separate entrepreneurship courses to undergraduate and postgraduate students and staff,
spanning many different disciplines and ranging from short courses to complete masters degrees. Entrepreneurship
courses are taught in MIT’s ?ve schools—the School of Engineering, the School of Science, Sloan School of
Management, the School of Architecture and Planning, and the School of Humanities, Arts and Social Science.
MIT also delivers the “Entrepreneurship 101” MOOC which is now available to students around the world.
Students at MIT can take part in over 20 student entrepreneurship clubs that cater for different interests (tech,
non-tech, social ventures etc.) and different cultural backgrounds.
The MIT Technology Licensing Of?ce supports access to IP by startups formed by staff or students, with the aim of
making it relatively simple for staff or students to obtain IP rights to technologies they have developed and use them
as the basis for a new company.
The university has a number of dedicated seed funding programs that provide early-stage funding for promising
student projects that could become startups.
The university also actively engages external entrepreneurs as mentors and runs many events, conferences and
startup idea competitions to connect students with the external startup ecosystem so that they have strong networks
to help them grow their startups once they leave the university.
The Martin Trust Center for MIT Entrepreneurship acts as a core part of MIT’s entrepreneurship ecosystem and
supports student startups via provision of a collaborative workspace, meeting rooms, a videoconference system and
a makerspace. It also has a small group of full-time entrepreneurs in residence who advise students, a business idea
competition with a A$100 000 prize and the MIT Global Founders’ Skills Accelerator (MIT GFSA), one of the top-
rated university student startup accelerators in the world.
WHAT ARE THE OUTCOMES?
MIT estimates
97
that at the end of 2006, there were 25,600 active companies founded by MIT alumni, employing
3.3 million people and generating annual world revenues of nearly A$2.8 trillion. This group of companies, if its own
nation, would be the 11th largest economy in the world.
Surveys of MIT graduates have found that approximately 30 per cent of international graduates and 20 per cent of
domestic graduates go on to form a startup, with between 900 and 1,000 companies started by MIT alumni and
students every year.
MIT has found that 41 per cent of startup founders who studied at MIT are serial entrepreneurs, having started
multiple companies, and the average age of ?rst-time startup founder from MIT is 28—suggesting that a large
proportion of MIT students who start companies do so shortly after graduation rather than building their careers ?rst.
ENGAGING EXPERIENCED ENTREPRENEURS
It is vital that the content of entrepreneurship education
programs is current and relevant. One way this can be
achieved is by engaging experienced entrepreneurs, investors
and others with frst-hand experience in high-impact
entrepreneurship to augment academic teaching staf in
delivery of student entrepreneurship programs. Successful
entrepreneurs can also provide students with inspiration as
role models.
Te positive impact of having entrepreneurship courses
taught by entrepreneurs and others with frst-hand
experience includes:
` Courses tend to be rich in actionable, practical content
` Students are inspired to take action and explore
entrepreneurship for themselves
` Subjects focus on recent case studies and modern
approaches
` Courses focus on high-growth businesses rather than
attempting to cover a gamut of topics more relevant to
small businesses entrepreneurship and social ventures
` Courses expose students to the startup community outside
the university, and ensure that the right people are invited
to be guest lecturers.
42 BOOSTING HIGH-IMPACT ENTREPRENEURSHIP IN AUSTRALIA
Maintaining the involvement of academic staf in courses
is vital as it ensures rigour and quality in the teaching
and assessment.
Engagement of external entrepreneurs can take many
forms, including:
` Single lectures
` Adjunct lecturing positions across an entire subject
` Creation of course content or reviewing/providing advice
on course content
` Mentoring in incubators, accelerators, Startup Weekends
` Judging at ideas competitions.
Notable examples of Australian universities engaging
experienced entrepreneurs include:
` Te iAccelerate Centre at the University of Wollongong
invites Jerome Engel (a leading entrepreneurship
educator and Executive Director of the Lester Center for
Entrepreneurship, University of California at Berkeley) as
an annual guest speaker and mentor
` Steve Wozniak (Co-founder of Apple) is an Adjunct
Professor at the UTS Faculty of Engineering and IT and
provides mentoring to students startups.
A note of caution: Busy entrepreneurs should be used
selectively and where they can add most value. Several
Australian universities have engaged successful entrepreneurs
to teach entrepreneurship courses but have damaged
relationships with those entrepreneurs by not providing
adequate teaching support, not ensuring that enough
students attend lectures, or by allowing students to enrol who
have little interest in the topic.
CASE STUDY: STANFORD UNIVERSITY, USA
Stanford’s student entrepreneurship programs are characterised by the depth and breadth of engagement between
the university and experienced entrepreneurs from the external startup ecosystem, with boundaries often becoming
blurred. For example, the Stanford Technology Ventures Program delivers a wide range of startup courses and
extra-curricular activities for students in the School of Engineering, including the Lean LaunchPad course. It has a
core team of six full-time teaching staff, all of whom have deep ?rst-hand experience as entrepreneurs, 30 part-time
or adjunct teaching staff (all with entrepreneurial experience) and a board of advisors that includes some of Silicon
Valley’s most successful entrepreneurs and investors.
Stanford also runs the Entrepreneurial Thought Leaders weekly lecture series in which the university invites successful
entrepreneurs back to the university to share their experience with students and staff. The Entrepreneurship Corner (e-Corner)
has evolved as an online collection of 3,000 free videos and podcasts featuring these entrepreneurship thought leaders.
At Stanford, many academic staff are actively engaged in entrepreneurship and/or investing in startups, and are often the
?rst source of commercial advice to their students as they help steer students toward commercially viable business ideas.
By augmenting academic staff with successful alumni entrepreneurs as external lecturers, Stanford helps to
perpetuate a virtuous cycle in which alumni support each other and help to generate future waves of high-impact
entrepreneurs. Importantly, the process of selecting, inviting and managing external guest lecturers and mentors is
supported by a university-funded team to ensure academic staff are not burdened with these tasks.
In addition to education and mentoring, Stanford hosts many startup conferences and investor events during the
academic year, places students as interns in local tech companies and supports multiple student-run entrepreneurs
clubs and business idea competitions.
Stanford launched the StartX student accelerator in 2009 as a means of supporting student startups while the
students completed their degrees. The university provides A$1.7 million per annum to support its operations, and
has raised a number of seed funds that invest directly in student startups.
WHAT ARE THE OUTCOMES?
Staff and alumni of Stanford have founded 40,000 companies that have created 5.4 million jobs and generate annual
revenues of A$3.8 trillion. Between 2007 and 2011, Stanford graduate entrepreneurs raised A$5.8 billion in venture
capital and angel investment.
98

Since StartX began in 2009, over 500 students have launched startups whilst studying at Stanford, and 85 per cent of
these have attracted angel or venture capital funding, together raising over A$985 million.
43 CHAPTER 4 BEST PRACTICE ENTREPRENEURSHIP EDUCATION
MULTI-DISCIPLINARY AND INCLUSIVE
Entrepreneurship programs should engage students from
a wide range of disciplines to ensure that the program does
not become siloed within any faculty or school, and to allow
the students to beneft from diverse inputs and skill sets.
Where students are pursuing startup ideas (such as in
Startup Weekends, incubators, accelerators and idea
competitions) it is critical that they be encouraged to work in
teams that have a range of disciplines and personality types.
Tis approach helps to avoid situations where a homogenous
group of students work on a project but only have part of the
required skill set to execute—such as when business school
students come up with ideas for tech startups but have no
ability to build even a basic prototype.
Student entrepreneurship programs also have an important
role to play in encouraging more women to pursue
entrepreneurial career paths. It is known that women are
under-represented in high-growth startups in Australia,
with various estimates placing female participation as startup
founders between 6 and 19 per cent.
99, 100

Programs such as iAccelerate at the University of
Wollongong have sought to engage more women in
entrepreneurship by making a public commitment to
achieving gender balance, and ensuring that commitment
is met.
MULTI-POINT ENGAGEMENT
A staged, opt-in approach to engaging students in
entrepreneurship training is desirable so that individuals
become more involved of their own volition rather than
being forced to undertake mandatory courses.
Tis approach can be thought of as a funnel in which as
many students as possible are exposed to small bites of
entrepreneurship content via guest lectures, stalls at careers
days etc. (Figure 9). Tose students with the interest to
progress further through the funnel will self-select and take
on more substantial courses and/or get involved in hands-
on programs such as incubators, accelerators and overseas
placements.
According to the Kaufman Foundation (a US-based
organisation focused on teaching, supporting and researching
entrepreneurship), universities should provide students with
opportunities to engage at “teachable moments” (such as
when they have developed an interest in entrepreneurship
and are considering forming their own startup) rather than
attempt to indoctrinate students en masse regardless of their
level of interest.
101, 102

iAccelerate has achieved a signifcant milestone in gender equity—nearly half our current startups
have at least one female co-founder. Gender equity is embedded in our mission statement—but
we saw real change once we took specifc actions. We discovered after four years of trying, that it
takes various ways to engage women, that it’s one thing to state your mission, it’s another thing
to go well out of your way to get women involved. At iAccelerate we have created a community
of women interested in entrepreneurship and support them at all the stages of their formation,
from student formation onwards. We do many diferent things (host kids’ E-Club, have a female
investment strategy, have gender balanced pitching panels and women and men speakers at our
events) but the most efective thing we have done is to launch a women’s entrepreneurial breakfast
series. Te breakfasts produced immediate efect. Te intake after the frst breakfast saw 30 per cent
female applicants and 50 per cent accepted companies had female founders. At the time of this
writing 16 of the 34 startups currently in the iAccelerate program have a female co-founder.
Elizabeth Eastland
CEO, iAccelerate
44 BOOSTING HIGH-IMPACT ENTREPRENEURSHIP IN AUSTRALIA
Multiple points of engagement also help to get
entrepreneurship “into the air and the water” of the university.
Universities should aim to have as many students as possible
exposed to entrepreneurship in the frst one or two segments
of the funnel, not only because this will increase the number
that progress all the way through to actually launching
startups, but also because the skills they will acquire will be
valuable in any career path they choose, including working in
established companies.
In practice, it is possible for universities to expose close to
100 per cent of students to entrepreneurship by ensuring
that basic concepts are delivered in the form of guest lectures
and events that engage the student population.
One of the best examples of opt-in, multi-point engagement
is the range of student entrepreneurship programs delivered
by the University of Cambridge through the Centre for
Entrepreneurial Learning (Figure 10). Te CfEL utilises
an Entrepreneurship Journey Map, through which students
self-select into entrepreneurship programs and courses
spanning a continuum from inspiration (raising
entrepreneurial awareness via guest lectures and networking
events) through to implementation and company growth.
103
Figure 9: Opt-in funnel approach to student participation in entrepreneurship programs
Exposure to entrepreneurship
Potential outcomes
Broad awareness of
entrepreneurship principles
Work as a intrapreneur in a
large company or government
Work on startup idea
part-time during studies
Get a job with a
growing tech startup
Found a
tech startup
Startup incubator
or accelerator
Internship with an
existing startup
Hackathon or
business idea
competition
Elective subject
Short course/
guest lecture
S
t
u
d
e
n
t

p
o
p
u
l
a
t
i
o
n
45 CHAPTER 4 BEST PRACTICE ENTREPRENEURSHIP EDUCATION
Figure 10: The University of Cambridge Entrepreneurship Journey Map
INSPIRATION INFORMATION IMPLEMENTATION INTENTION GROWTH
Entrepreneurial
Awareness
Development of
Entrepreneurial Skills
and Con?dence
Idea Evaluation
& Opportunity
Recognition
Business Case
Development
Advanced
Entrepreneurial
Skills
Enterprise Tuesday
Lectures and Networking
University and Business Community
Enterprisers
4 Days—Creativity, Pitching, Networking
Postgraduate and Corporate groups
EnterpriseWISE
2 Weekends—Self Ef?cacy Skills
Graduate, Postgraduates and early career women
ETECH Projects
12 Lectures and Assessed Projects
Undergraduates and Postgraduates
Ignite
5 days—Validation of technology ideas
Novice Entrepreneurs
Postgraduate Diploma in Entrepreneurship
12 Months—Quali?cations, Personal Entrepreneurial Development, Enterprise Development
Entreprenerial Graduates
46 AUSTRALIA: THE ENTREPRENEURIAL COUNTRY
CASE STUDY: TECHNION—ISRAEL INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY

Technion
104
is recognised as Israel’s premier science, technology and engineering university, having produced over
95,000 graduates in technical disciplines since 1927.
A core part of Technion’s entrepreneurship ecosystem is the Bronica Entrepreneurship Centre,
105
which acts as a
focal point for students and staff across all disciplines wishing to engage in entrepreneurial activities. The BEC offers
assistance to entrepreneurs in promoting their ideas throughout the process of building a startup, including guidance
by experienced staff, mentoring by experts, networking with leading entrepreneurs and assistance with fundraising.
The BEC also runs an accelerator for student startups and offers pre-seed loans for students with startup ideas, and
delivers a range of undergraduate and postgraduate entrepreneurship courses in conjunction with individual faculties.
Technion has a strong focus on creating startups based on STEM skills, and recently announced the Technion-
Cornell campus in New York City—a A$640 million applied engineering and innovation precinct that will engage
large numbers of engineering students from both universities in innovation and entrepreneurship-focused projects
and studies.
All of Technion’s student entrepreneurship programs are designed to articulate into the broader suite of startup
programs supported by the government, including Israel’s network of 22 startup incubators, which together support
approximately 180 companies and provide each with up to A$880,000 in government funding.
A feature of Technion’s approach to entrepreneurship is the provision of a wide range of programs that students
can access without having to undertake formal studies in entrepreneurship. Perhaps as a result of the strong pro-
entrepreneurship culture in Israel and the country’s numerous global successes, it is assumed that most students will
have a broad awareness of high-impact entrepreneurship and will be able to identify the points at which they wish to
engage during their studies.
WHAT ARE THE OUTCOMES?
An estimated 25 per cent of all Technion graduates have gone on to form a tech startup, with some having achieved
signi?cant success, such as Waze, which was acquired by Google for A$1.6 billion.
Technion graduates have been estimated to comprise the majority of Israeli-educated scientists and engineers,
constituting over 70 per cent of the country’s founders and managers of high-tech companies, and 80 per cent of
Israeli NASDAQ-listed companies are led by Technion graduates.
106
Israel is often held up as an example for other countries to follow, since it has successfully transitioned from a relatively
low-tech economy prior to the early 1990s to one of the world’s most vibrant technology-led economies today.
CONNECTING TO THE EXTERNAL STARTUP
ECOSYSTEM
Connecting university entrepreneurship programs to the
local startup ecosystem is essential to: (1) ensure the program
is delivering guidance to students that aligns with practices
in the real world, and (2) that the students gain some
familiarity with the startup ecosystem which they will have
to navigate if they decide to pursue their own startup.
Tis has been done very efectively by the Melbourne
Accelerator Program (MAP) at the University of
Melbourne, which has a strong emphasis on engaging
local and interstate entrepreneurs to mentor the teams.
At the end of the three-month program MAP runs
“Demo Days”, where the teams pitch their startups to an
audience of investors, other entrepreneurs and media in
Melbourne, Sydney and Silicon Valley. MAP also augments
the accelerator program with a wide range of events and
workshops which can be attended by anyone.
MAP selects six student teams per intake to support via
provision of A$20,000 in funding, ofce space, mentoring
and networking opportunities and is open to students, staf
and alumni from all faculties. A total of 24 student startups
have been supported by MAP, which together have raised
A$10 million in funding, created 120 jobs and generated
A$5 million in revenue.
107
47 CHAPTER 4 BEST PRACTICE ENTREPRENEURSHIP EDUCATION
If you want a great city, start with a great university. We believe Melbourne has all the elements of
a great ecosystem of innovation and entrepreneurship. Trough working together, universities, the
city and its business leaders, new and established, can generate wealth and opportunity for all.
Just as Stanford has enlivened Silicon Valley, Harvard and MIT the innovation district of
Boston, and Cambridge the industry precinct that now surrounds the university, the University
of Melbourne is keen to ensure the city of Melbourne has a similar vibrant centre for innovation,
incubation and transformation.
Professor Glyn Davis
Vice-Chancellor, University of Melbourne
MAP has been running for four years, making it one
of the most mature student entrepreneurship programs
in Australia. It receives funding from multiple faculties,
enabling it to employ six staf who manage a high quality
group of mentors with frst-hand experience in startups.
In 2014, it was ranked by UBI Global as the 13th best
university incubator in the world.
Another notable Australian program is Startup Catalyst, an
annual Silicon Valley immersion trip that takes 20 computer
science students and recent graduates to San Francisco and
Silicon Valley for 10 days of intensive meetings with startups
and larger technology companies. It aims to immerse the
participants in Silicon Valley’s rich culture of high-growth
entrepreneurship and to inspire them to become Australia’s
next batch of globally successful tech entrepreneurs.
Te program is a philanthropic initiative of successful
Australian entrepreneur and investor Steve Baxter, and
currently accepts students from several universities in
Queensland. Te program will be expanded to have a
national scope in 2016.
It is worthwhile comparing the scale of the above
programs with that of the National University of
Singapore’s National Overseas Colleges program, which
currently places 150 NUS students per annum in a six-
month internship in startup hotspots such as Silicon
Valley, and plans to double this number to 300 in 2016.
Te NUS program is directly supported by the Singapore
government and represents a scale of student immersion
which Australia would do well to replicate.
SUPPORTED BY LEADERSHIP
If Australian universities are to engender a culture of
entrepreneurship on campus and make a signifcant
contribution to boosting Australia’s knowledge economy,
it will be essential that vice-chancellors and other senior
leaders actively promote the cause and engage the university
community in a dialogue about the role of entrepreneurship
in the university.
High-impact entrepreneurship is not yet widely viewed as a
legitimate activity that belongs in the university environment
in Australia. Experience shows that visible leadership
can drive cultural change by signalling a clear intent to
implement change and drive positive results.
A topical example is CSIRO, which is currently undergoing
a major strategic shift that will see it place much greater
emphasis on entrepreneurship than ever before. Under the
direction of its new CEO, Dr Larry Marshall, (himself a
successful entrepreneur and venture capitalist, having spent
the last 25 years in Silicon Valley), CSIRO is establishing
a raft of internal programs to train staf and students in
Lean Startup principles, support potential startups via an
accelerator that engages external entrepreneurs as mentors,
and by creating a fund that will invest in startups formed by
CSIRO staf and students.
According to recently appointed Chairman David
Todey, CSIRO will focus on “creating a greater culture of
innovation and entrepreneurship in Australia”.
108

48 BOOSTING HIGH-IMPACT ENTREPRENEURSHIP IN AUSTRALIA
Over the last six months, CSIRO has embarked on a process
of implementing the Lean LaunchPad course across all of
its Flagships, and engaging with successful Australian and
overseas entrepreneurs to deliver mentoring to aspiring
CSIRO entrepreneurs, all as part of a suite of initiatives to
boost entrepreneurship among CSIRO staf and the 750
PhD students it co-supervises with universities.
Dr Marshall and the CSIRO leadership team and board
have made it clear that CSIRO is embarking on a new
chapter, and that entrepreneurship is now an important part
of CSIRO’s strategy.
FOCUS ON VALIDATION, NOT BUSINESS PLANS
Business plans are entirely appropriate for established
businesses, but of very little value to startups because nobody
knows what the startup’s business will be.
Best practice does not involve having students write
business plans for startups. As noted by Morris, Kuratko
and Cornwall, “Students produce elegant documents but
fail to learn much about the reality of the entrepreneurial
experience.”
109
Startups are, at least in their early days, little more than a
set of hypotheses that need to be tested by engaging with
customers. Nonetheless, many business schools continue to
deliver entrepreneurship courses where students must come
up with an idea for a hypothetical new business and spend
a semester creating a lengthy document that sets out the
future plans for the new venture, without any requirement
to actually execute what is set out in the plan or test the
assumptions with real customers.
Educators have been infuenced by the work of Steve Blank,
Eric Ries and others, that a startup is not a small version of a
large company, but is in fact a temporary organisation whose
purpose is to discover a viable and scalable business model.
110

Instead of writing business plans, startup founders should
learn about Lean Startup principles and focus their eforts
on articulating and validating hypotheses by engaging with
customers.
According to Franck Nouyrigat, Co-Founder of Startup
Weekend, “Startup business plans are as good as following
directions given by a blind chimpanzee.”
Startup Weekends are an excellent example of the
Lean Startup approach in practice. Tey are weekend-
long, hands-on experiences where entrepreneurs and
aspiring entrepreneurs can fnd out if startup ideas are
viable. On average, half of Startup Weekend’s attendees
have technical backgrounds, with the other half having
business backgrounds.
Te event starts on Friday evening, when all participants are
invited to give a 60-second pitch summarising their startup
As an Australian who spent 25 years in Silicon Valley, I passionately believe Australia’s
sub-par innovation performance is a critical national issue. Tere is no more potent fuel for
creating enduring value than technology-enabled innovation. To do this, Australia must be a
high-performing innovation economy. In an interconnected world of accelerating,
technology-driven change, our future prosperity, health and sustainability is closely bound to our
capacity for innovation.
To improve our performance and competitiveness, we must build the pipeline of STEM talent
in Australia and build skills like entrepreneurship, project management and multi-disciplinary
collaboration. We often talk about building ‘T-shaped’ leaders with discipline depth and cross
cutting skills. For me the most critical national ‘T’ is STEM down, and innovation across.
As Australia’s national innovation organisation, CSIRO is committed to helping build and equip
Australia’s future science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) and innovation
capable workforce. We want to create, enable and support successful entrepreneurs and
intrapreneurs, and equip more of our workforce with the skills to create new high-technology
industries and companies, and reinvent existing ones.
Larry Marshall
Chief Executive Ofcer, CSIRO
49 CHAPTER 4 BEST PRACTICE ENTREPRENEURSHIP EDUCATION
idea and inviting others to join their team. Over Saturday
and Sunday, teams form around the most promising ideas
and work on validating these ideas and building a minimal
viable product or prototype. On Sunday evening teams pitch
their businesses, demonstrate their prototypes and receive
valuable feedback from a panel of expert judges.
Startup Weekend originated in Boulder, Colorado in
2007, and is now operated by TechStars, a global network
of startup accelerators. Since 2007, over 1,500 Startup
Weekends have been held in 135 countries, involving
210,000 entrepreneurs and resulting in the formation of
thousands of startups. Over 36 per cent of startups formed
at Startup Weekends are still going after three months and
roughly 80 per cent of participants report that they intend to
continue working with their team after the weekend.
111
Te frst Startup Weekend took place in Australia in
2011, and since then a total of 41 Startup Weekends
have been held around the country, engaging an estimated
3,000 participants.
111
STUDENT PLACEMENTS
Worldwide, universities are undergoing a shift from
providing education largely separate from the workforce, to
one in which education is integrated with work placements,
internships and part-time work.
A study by the Australian Council for Educational Research
commissioned by the Ofce of the Chief Scientist found
that work-integrated learning (WIL) is increasingly
common in Australian universities, but that its use to
augment classroom-based teaching varies signifcantly
between disciplines—with almost 75 per cent of ICT
students undertaking an industry-based project during their
degree, but only around 14 per cent of science students—
notwithstanding that WIL is widely regarded as having a
positive impact on the work-readiness of graduates.
112
Te value of work-integrated learning comes from the
opportunity for students to experience frst-hand the work
environment for which they are training, enabling them to
cement and apply the learnings from the classroom, to better
understand the needs of their future employers, and to build
valuable connections that can lead to future employment
opportunities and professional relationships.
In the last decade, a growing number of universities around
the world have taken a similar approach in their eforts to
produce entrepreneurial graduates. Tey have found that
students derive immense value from placements within
existing startups and other high-growth frms to augment
their classroom-based entrepreneurship training and other
experiential learning activities.
Internships work best when the students have regular debrief
sessions with the academic team or course facilitator and
fellow students, rather than placing the onus on the company
for “teaching” them.
A global benchmark in student startup placement at NUS
was previously described on page 47. Student interns work
for up to a year in parallel with studies at local universities
such as Stanford and KTH Royal Institute of Technology.
In Australia, very few universities are providing startup
internships or exposure to overseas startup ecosystems,
despite the obvious benefts of doing so. Two noteworthy
Australian programs that do expose students to startups are:
` A student internship program run by the Australian
Graduate School of Management at the University
of New South Wales, which provides internships for
its MBA students within Sydney-based tech startups.
Te program has had a positive reception from startups
due to the strong business skills of the students that
can be applied within the startup during their 12-week
placement.
` Tin Alley beta—an internship program at the University
of Melbourne that places computer science students
as interns in local startups. Te program now draws on
students from Deakin University, La Trobe University,
Monash University, RMIT University, Swinburne
University of Technology and the University of Tasmania.
It has placed a total of 27 students so far and expects to
place a further 20 in the current year.
As yet, there are no large-scale startup internship programs
run by Australian universities that focus on STEM students
or that place signifcant numbers of students in overseas
startup hubs.
50 BOOSTING HIGH-IMPACT ENTREPRENEURSHIP IN AUSTRALIA
CASE STUDY: NATIONAL UNIVERSITY OF SINGAPORE (NUS)

The entrepreneurship ecosystem at NUS
113
is led by NUS Enterprise,
114
a stand-alone division that provides
entrepreneurship education and support across all university faculties. NUS Enterprise was formed in 2001, and
delivers multiple streams of experiential entrepreneurship education including:
Lean LaunchPad—A 12-week intensive course delivered in person by the course’s creators, Steve Blank and
Jerome Engel
Entrepreneurship Summer School—An annual intensive two-week residential course for international students to
provide them with insights and connections in the Singapore entrepreneurial ecosystem
NUS Startup Runway—An incubator for startups that engages local and international entrepreneurs as mentors
National Overseas Colleges (NOC) program—An internship and overseas immersion program that places 150
NUS students per annum as interns in high-growth tech startups in hubs such as Silicon Valley, Beijing, Stockholm
and Tel Aviv for up to a year in parallel with studies at local universities such as Stanford and KTH Royal Institute of
Technology. The program launched in 2002 and will increase its scope to 300 students per annum from 2016.
iLEAD (“innovative Local Enterprise Achiever Development”)—A local counterpart to NOC which provides
students with internships in high-growth Singapore-based companies and international companies expanding into
the region.
WHAT ARE THE OUTCOMES?
As Singapore’s main university, NUS is widely regarded as having a major role in driving Singapore’s shift to an
entrepreneurial culture. Between 2001 and 2015, NUS has supported the formation of 360 student startups and
1,800 students have completed the NOC or iLEAD programs, creating a large and valuable alumni base of
entrepreneurs with global experience and connections.
Te National University of Singapore’s National Overseas Colleges (NOC) program is one of the
most impactful student entrepreneurship programs I have seen in Singapore, and indeed the world.
By placing 150 students a year as interns in startups in global tech hubs such as Silicon Valley,
Beijing, Stockholm and Tel Aviv, we are inspiring the next generation of entrepreneurs and
equipping them with immensely valuable skill sets and connections.
I believe the NOC program is one of the major factors in the palpable transformation to an
entrepreneurially-driven economy that is underway in Singapore today.
Steve Leonard
Executive Deputy Chairman,
Infocomm Development Authority, Singapore
51 CHAPTER 4 BEST PRACTICE ENTREPRENEURSHIP EDUCATION
SUMMARY—BEST PRACTICE VS POOR PRACTICE
Table 8 contrasts best practice entrepreneurship education in universities with poor practice.
Table 8: Entrepreneurship education in universities —Contrasting best practice with poor practice
Attributes of best practice Attributes of poor practice
Multiple opportunities for engagement Single program
Experiential, strong emphasis on learning by doing Theoretical, classroom-based
Encourages concrete action to pursue ideas Encourages passive learning
Based on modern startup methods (eg. Lean Startup) Based on out-of-date concepts (eg. writing business plans)
Encourages multi-disciplinary collaboration Available only to a narrow group of students
(eg. in business school)
Engages successful entrepreneur alumni as guest lecturers/
mentors/teachers
Courses taught by academics with no ?rst-hand experience
in entrepreneurship
Connects with outside startup ecosystem Isolated from external startup ecosystem
Available to students when they are ready Taught at a set point in curriculum (eg. 1st/2nd year)
Students self-select into programs based on interest Mandatory “ENT-101” course
Focus on growing the individual rather than their idea Focus on the idea
52 BOOSTING HIGH-IMPACT ENTREPRENEURSHIP IN AUSTRALIA
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89 R. Graham, MIT Skoltech Initiative, Technology
innovation ecosystem benchmarking study: Key fndings from
phase 1, (2013), p.10, http://www.rhgraham.org/RHG/
Recent_projects_fles/Benchamrking%20study%20-%20
Phase%201%20summary%20.pdf
90 M. H. Morris, D. F. Kuratko, J. R. Cornwall,
Entrepreneurship programs and the modern university,
(Edward Elgar Publishing, 2013).
91 H.M. Neck, P.G. Greene and C.G. Brush, Teaching
Entrepreneurship: A Practice-Based Approach, (Edward
Elgar Publishing, 2014).
92 US Department of Commerce, Te Innovative and
Entrepreneurial University: Higher Education, Innovation
and Entrepreneurship in Focus, (2013), http://www.
eda.gov/pdf/Te_Innovative_and_Entrepreneurial_
University_Report.pdf
93 Steve Blank, Harvard Business Review, Why the Lean
Start-Up Changes Everything, (2013).
94 Jerome Engel, Blog contribution on Berkely Blogs,
Tree challenges: Taking entrepreneurship & innovation
education beyond the classroom, (2015), http://blogs.
berkeley.edu/2015/07/29/three-challenges-taking-
entrepreneurship-innovation-education-beyond-the-
classroom/
95 Te Centre for Entrepreneurial Learning, Achievements,
University of Cambridge: Judge Business School, (2013),
http://www.cfel.jbs.cam.ac.uk/aboutus/achievements.html
96 European Commission, Supporting the Entrepreneurial
Potential of Higher Education: Case Studies, (2015), http://
sephe.eu/fleadmin/sepHe/documents/sepHE_D5_Final-
Report_Appendix_2015-05-31_v1.0.pdf
97 Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Entrepreneurship,
(2015), http://web.mit.edu/facts/entrepreneurship.html
98 T. Walker in Te Independent, (2013), http://www.
independent.co.uk/student/news/the-billionaire-factory-
why-stanford-university-produces-so-many-celebrated-
web-entrepreneurs-8706573.html
99 P. Morle, Z. Kitschke, A. Jones, J. Tanchel, Pollenizer,
From Little Tings, Startup Genome Project and Deloitte,
Silicon Beach: A study of the Australian Startup Ecosystem,
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au/Documents/technology-media-telecommunications/
deloitte-au-tmt-silicon-beach-031014.pdf
100 Startup Muster, Survey of Australian startup community,
(2014), https://www.startupmuster.com/
101 V. Wadhwa, Techcrunch, Can Entrepreneurs Be Made?,
(2010), http://techcrunch.com/2010/02/27/can-
entrepreneurs-be-made/
102 V. Wadhwa, K. Holly, R. Aggarwal, A. Salkever, Anatomy
of an entrepreneur: Family background and motivation,
Kaufman Foundation Small Research Projects Research,
(2009), http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.1431263
103 European Commission, Supporting the Entrepreneurial
Potential of Higher Education: Case Studies, (2015), p.31,
http://sephe.eu/fleadmin/sepHe/documents/sepHE_
D5_Final-Report_Appendix_2015-05-31_v1.0.pdf
104 Te Technion: Israel Institute of Technology, About
Technion, http://pard.technion.ac.il/about-technion/
105 Bronica Entrepreneurship Center, http://www.yazamut.
technion.ac.il/contact-us/
106 Te Technion: Israel Institute of Technology, Fast Facts,
http://www.technion.ac.il/en/fast-facts/
107 Melbourne Accelerator Program, University of
Melbourne, About MAP, http://themap.co/map-startup-
accelerator/
108 J. Hare, in Te Australian, (2015), http://www.
theaustralian.com.au/business/latest/thodey-to-weave-
his-magic-at-csiro/story-e6frg90f-1227473763054
109 M. H. Morris, D. F. Kuratko, J. R. Cornwall,
Entrepreneurship programs and the modern university,
(Edward Elgar Publishing, 2013).
110 S. Blank, Blog post on Steve Blank, What’s a startup? First
principles, (2010), http://steveblank.com/2010/01/25/
whats-a-startup-frst-principles/
111 Techstars Central, About Startup Weekend, http://
startupweekend.org/about/
112 D. Edwards, K. Perkins, J. Pearce, J. Hong, Australian
Council for Educational Research, Work integrated
learning in STEM in Australian universities, (2015),
http://www.chiefscientist.gov.au/wp-content/uploads/
ACER_WIL-in-STEM-in-Australian-Universities_
June-2015.pdf
113 National University of Singapore, About NUS, http://
www.nus.edu.sg/images/resources/content/about/glance-
en.pdf
114 National University of Singapore, About NUS Enterprise,
http://enterprise.nus.edu.sg/about-us/our-purpose
CHAPTER 5
A WAY FORWARD
FOR AUSTRALIA
54 BOOSTING HIGH-IMPACT ENTREPRENEURSHIP IN AUSTRALIA
MEASURING MATURITY OF
ENTREPRENEURSHIP EDUCATION
Te maturity of any university’s entrepreneurship ecosystem
can be categorised into six stages, as shown in Figure 11.
115

University entrepreneurship programs typically develop
over time from an initial starting point that may be no
more than a single elective subject—often taught in the
business school to mainly business students and by an
academic staf member with limited frst-hand experience of
entrepreneurship (Stage 1).
Over time, those universities that invest in growing their
entrepreneurship programs typically add some networking
events and perhaps a startup incubator (Stage 2). Some even
run business plan competitions, although eforts still tend to
be mainly led by business schools.
By Stage 3, universities generally have a suite of
entrepreneurship courses catering for undergraduate and
postgraduate students, often with some being delivered
outside the business school and tailored to science and
engineering faculties. Some even establish a dedicated space to
act as a physical hub for student entrepreneurship activities.
Stage 4 is characterised by further expansion of the teaching
curriculum to a broad range of short courses, elective subjects
and master degrees specialising in entrepreneurship. By
this point, universities tend to have signifcant involvement
of experienced entrepreneurs from the local startup
ecosystem to help with creation and delivery of courses or as
entrepreneurs-in-residence, and often two-way exchanges of
expertise via internships, international trade missions, seed
funds and dedicated staf to support student entrepreneurs.
Tey also have many hundreds of students actively engaged
in entrepreneurship activities across the campus.
Many universities do not reach Stage 5 or 6, but those
that do generally reach a point where practically the entire
student population is exposed to entrepreneurship activities
on some level. Te identity of the university is closely linked
with the concept of entrepreneurship, and the university
has developed a track record in producing companies that
go on to create signifcant wealth and economic impact.
Universities at Stage 5 and 6 often have internal venture
funds specifcally for investing in student-led startups, and
some enable alumni to become investors.
Based on the analysis in the previous chapter, it would be
reasonable to conclude that universities such as University of
Cambridge, Technion and National University of Singapore
are at Stage 5, with Stanford and MIT at Stage 6, due
primarily to the length of time over which those institutions
have supported entrepreneurship combined with the highly
entrepreneurial cultural environments in which they exist.
KEY POINTS
` Te entrepreneurship education activities of most Australian universities are relatively immature by global standards.
` A number of Australian universities have recently launched entrepreneurship centres to give much-needed focus to their
eforts to produce and train entrepreneurs.
` Several universities are developing plans for entrepreneurship teaching initiatives on a meaningful scale.
` Most oferings are still either at a too small a scale or not in line with international best practice.
` A lack of cultural support for high-impact entrepreneurship in Australia is one of the biggest obstacles to producing
more entrepreneurs.
` A signifcant efort is needed to boost the capabilities of Australian universities to teach high-impact entrepreneurship
and produce entrepreneurially-minded graduates.
55 CHAPTER 5 A WAY FORWARD FOR AUSTRALIA
Two specifc measures of the maturity of student
entrepreneurship programs warrant particular attention.
Quality: Refers to the usefulness of the content in
equipping students with applied skills and
actually motivating them to take active
steps toward becoming entrepreneurs.
Indicators of high quality include use of best
practice Lean Startup principles and courses
such as Lean LaunchPad, engagement of
experienced entrepreneurs as lecturers
and mentors, and a focus on high-growth
businesses rather than a more generic
approach to entrepreneurship.
Reach: Refers to the number of students that
the programs are able to engage in a
meaningful way. Universities that achieve
signi?cant reach typically do so by offering
a large number of programs and courses
that expose students to the concept of
high-impact entrepreneurship in small
doses and enable them to opt in to more
involved programs based on their level of
interest. This “learning journey” approach
has been used effectively by universities
such as University of Cambridge as a means
of exposing a large percentage of the
student population to entrepreneurship and
allowing those with a more serious interest
to pursue it further.
It is evident that for student entrepreneurship programs
to have a material impact, they need to have both quality
and reach.
STATE OF PLAY IN AUSTRALIA
To date, no formal assessment has been conducted of
the maturity of Australian universities’ entrepreneurship
programs. Tere is no national assessment of such
programs as part of the evidence for universities’ impact
on the economy. However, based on analysis including a
detailed review of a selection of programs, and interviews
with stakeholders in several of those institutions, some
observations can be made about the state of play in Australia.
Entrepreneurship education in Australian universities
is a relatively recent phenomenon, and most universities
have only begun to extend their oferings beyond teaching
business school subject in the last three to fve years.
It should therefore be of no surprise that a large number of
Australian universities are at Stage 1 or 2.
A handful of Australian universities have progressed to Stage
3, and it could be argued that two or three are at Stage 4.
None have yet developed their entrepreneurship programs to
a level of maturity that would place them in Stage 5 or 6.
At a fundamental level, the main reason Australian
universities lag behind their international counterparts is that
we have come late to the party and are now having to catch
up in response to student demand.
Many of the programs that currently exist in Australian
universities struggle with achieving quality or reach (or
both). Tose that are not delivering quality programs
often sufer from having out-of-date content that requires
students to write lengthy business plans and does not follow
best practice Lean Startup principles, or lack staf with
appropriate frst-hand experience. Many do not fully engage
with the entrepreneurial expertise in the community to
augment internal teaching resources, resulting in a sub-
optimal experience for students.
Figure 11: Framework for establishing maturity of entrepreneurship education in universities
Single course Incubator
or similar
Events
Expansion of
curriculum
Entrepreneurship
centre
Engagement of
local startup
community
Broad curriculum Campus-wide
infusion
Integration
across faculties
Part of
institutional
identity 
Stage 1 Stage 2 Stage 3 Stage 4 Stage 5 Stage 6
56 BOOSTING HIGH-IMPACT ENTREPRENEURSHIP IN AUSTRALIA
Tose that do not have sufcient reach are often limited
by lack of internal funding, lack of space, lack of available
staf time (which is tied to lack of funding).Tere is also the
barrier where the program is “owned” by a particular faculty
or school, making it accessible to only a narrow slice of the
student population.
A notable example of a high-quality but sub-scale
program is the “Technology Venture Creation” course
(ELEC5701)
116
taught within the engineering faculty
at the University of Sydney. Te course was created in
2008 by Matt Barrie (an experienced serial entrepreneur,
currently CEO of ASX-listed company Freelancer.com)
and taught for several years by Matt and Bill Bartee (a serial
entrepreneur and venture capital investor) with guest lectures
provided by other experienced entrepreneurs from Australia
and the United States.
Te Technology Venture Creation course was based on
entrepreneurship courses delivered at Stanford University
and is one of the highest-quality entrepreneurship courses
delivered at any Australian university. It complements other
entrepreneurship programs at the University of Sydney,
including the Incubate student incubator.
However, the course is only ofered to electrical engineering
students, with the result that it has only been taken by
around 20 students per annum, increasing to 43 students
in 2015. Tere has been strong demand from students in
other disciplines such as science, mechanical engineering,
aeronautical engineering, biomedical engineering, business
and medicine, and the university is currently exploring ways
to make the course available to a wider range of students.
Smart economies are built around smart people. Not every university graduate will be an
entrepreneur, nor should we expect them to be, but they should leave our places of learning having
learned how to be entrepreneurial in their wider approach to life. If we can raise the IQ—the
Innovation Quotient—of our cohort of students, give them the tools and confdence and the
ability to innovate and problem solve, we stand a good chance at transforming society through
impactful education. Tis is a numbers game. With over a million people in higher education in
Australia, if only 10 in every 1,000 of our graduates imbued with additional skills beyond their
disciplinary knowledge goes on to translate that knowledge to innovation in enterprise, we will
build and transform tens of thousands of industries for the future.
Professor David Lloyd
Vice Chancellor, University of South Australia
I believe that our economic future depends on our ability to implement our ideas and create
businesses that matter in a global context. It is therefore of great concern to me that Australian
universities are lagging in the importance of exposing students to entrepreneurship, whilst in
countries such as the UK entrepreneurship has been an integral part of student life in many
universities for a decade or more.
Producing graduates with an entrepreneurial mindset and the practical skills to build technology-
based businesses will support Australia’s much-need transformation to a knowledge-intensive
economy. Tis represents a signifcant new function for many Australian universities, and one that
will require a substantial national investment.
Professor Michael Cardew-Hall
Pro-Vice Chancellor (Innovation), Australian National University
57 CHAPTER 5 A WAY FORWARD FOR AUSTRALIA
WHICH UNIVERSITIES ARE PRODUCING
HIGH-IMPACT ENTREPRENEURS?
Figure 12, based on unpublished data collected by PwC for
the Startup Economy study in 2013, shows the Australian
universities at which the founders of Australian tech startups
obtained their undergraduate or postgraduate degree, relative
to the highest ranking (UNSW, indexed at 100).
Whilst the data is imperfect and does not track every
Australian startup, it is the most comprehensive study
available that explores the link between universities and
graduate startup formation. Tere is no inherent bias in the
study, therefore startups whose founders studied at any one
university will have been under-represented to the same
extent as startups whose founders studied elsewhere.
A more detailed analysis will be needed to fully understand
the forces at play, but there is a clear correlation between
universities that rank highly on this scale and the presence
of a range of student entrepreneurship programs that are
operating in line with best practice (i.e. deliver high quality)
and at meaningful scale (i.e. have signifcant student reach).
PROGRESS IS BEING MADE
Tere is a clear trend towards Australian universities
expanding and professionalising their student
entrepreneurship oferings, and several universities have
made signifcant strides in recent years.
To varying degrees, universities are starting to view student
entrepreneurship as an important function and are putting in
place a range of programs to expose students to high-impact
entrepreneurship and support them as they form startups.
Figure 12: Australian universities ranked by number of startup founders (PwC, used with permission)
0 10 20 30 40
Index of number of startup founders
50 60 70 80 90 100
University of New South Wales
University of Technology Sydney
University of Sydney
University of Melbourne
Macquarie University
Monash University
AGSM
University of Wollongong
RMIT University
Swinburne University of Technology
Queensland University of Technology
Australian National University
Curtin University of Technology
University of Western Australia
University of Adelaide
58 BOOSTING HIGH-IMPACT ENTREPRENEURSHIP IN AUSTRALIA
A number of universities have also created dedicated centres to act as the focal point of their entrepreneurship activities.
Examples include:
*
Michael Crouch
Innovation Centre,
University of New
South Wales
An innovation and entrepreneurship centre located within the new Materials Science Engineering
Building at UNSW’s Kensington campus. Opened in September 2015 and supported by a
donation from successful businessman Michael Crouch.
The centre aims to foster a culture of innovation on campus, inspire an innovation mindset in every
UNSW graduate, contribute to the innovation ecosystem in Australia and in?uence the emerging
innovation economy.
It is modelled on innovation centres at Harvard, Yale and MIT, and offers experiential learning
programs, maker spaces, workshops, seminars and ideation events, and is open to students from
all faculties at UNSW.
The MCIC augments a wide range of existing student entrepreneurship initiatives at UNSW,
including multiple student entrepreneurship clubs, undergraduate and postgraduate courses
run by the business school, a venture incubator space in the School of Computer Science and
Engineering, a Centre for Innovation & Entrepreneurship in the Business School which runs the
Peter Farrell Cup business plan competition, a Startup Games competition for students that runs
over four weekends, MBA student internships within local tech startups, a dedicated student
mentoring service provided by three full-time UNSW Innovations staff (400 students supported so
far), pro-bono legal advice for student and alumni entrepreneurs, and FounderLab, an on-campus
product development team for non-technical student startup founders.
iAccelerate,
University of
Wollongong
A suite of entrepreneur education, acceleration and mentoring programs for aspiring
entrepreneurs including UoW students. It was established in 2012 and will operate from a
dedicated physical facility capable of housing over 200 entrepreneurs from April 2016.
The main programs offered by iAccelerate are:
` iAccelerate Start—An ideas incubator for early stage businesses
` iAccelerate Advanced—A tailored business acceleration program for more advanced companies
with high growth potential
` iAccelerate Club—Engagement with successful entrepreneurs and networking opportunities. 1,300
members
` iAccelerate Mentor—Expert advice, knowledge sharing, peer-to-peer support
` iAccelerate Pitch—Present to industry experts and investors
` iAccelerate Educate—Tailored education program for entrepreneurs
` iAccelerate Seed—An early-stage fund that makes seed and follow-on investments in iAccelerate
resident startups
` Students receive free access to iAccelerate services for 6 months.
New Venture Institute,
Flinders University
NVI is an entrepreneurship centre housed in a new A$120 million facility as part of the Tonsley
Park Innovation Precinct in Adelaide. It was established in 2013 and has the aim of nurturing an
entrepreneurial community at Flinders and more widely in Adelaide.
Student entrepreneurship programs include:
` Internships with local startups
` Venture Dorm—A 12-week Lean Startup program for students modelled on the Lean LaunchPad
` eNVIsion Incubator Space—A co-working space for student startup teams
` Networking events such as Entrepreneurs in Conversation that engage experienced entrepreneurs
as guest speakers.
* Examples provided here are intended as a snapshot of some of the more promising student entrepreneurship initiatives currently underway in Australian
universities. They are not intended as an exhaustive list and numerous other high quality programs exist that have not been included.
59 CHAPTER 5 A WAY FORWARD FOR AUSTRALIA
CBR Innovation
Network,
Canberra
The CBR Innovation Network (CBRIN) is an initiative of the ACT Government, formed in November
2014 to support innovative businesses and entrepreneurs in the ACT. Its focus is on growing
an innovation ecosystem to help diversify and grow the ACT economy, including educating
entrepreneurs in the ACT.  The Foundation Members are the Australian National University, the
University of Canberra, UNSW Canberra, NICTA and CSIRO. This unique collaboration engages
students and other emerging entrepreneurs into the growing innovation ecosystem, with pathways
into startups and large companies.
CBRIN links businesses and entrepreneurs with training, mentorship, events, co-working space and
networks that will accelerate their growth.
Speci?c initiatives supported by CBRIN from a dedicated facility in central Canberra include:
` GRIFFIN Accelerator—a business accelerator program that provides seed funding and a 3 month
intensive mentoring program
` Entry29—the largest co-working space for high growth businesses in Canberra
` HACT—a program to teach 10–17 year olds to code in the ACT
` KILN—an 18 month business incubator program including mentoring, of?ce space and training
` STIR—a crowd-voted micro-grants platform for 15–30 year olds to get their projects funded and
build entrepreneurship capability
` Inspiring the ACT—a program to promote and connect STEM and entrepreneurship in the ACT
` Workshops, training and events for entrepreneurs on topics including business validation, selling to
grow, business model generation, accounting, legal and marketing
` Internship and networking opportunities for students
` CBRIN also facilitates links into the broader education and research capabilities of it member
universities and research organisations, providing entrepreneurs with opportunities to access and
leverage these capabilities.
Te days of economic dominance by long-lived large corporates, and a majority of students keen to
work in them, are passing. A signifcant portion of job and economic growth is and will continue
to come from new high-growth technology companies, with many university students wishing to
start up their own companies. STEM students will need to be prepared with entrepreneurial skills,
experience and a supportive entrepreneurial community to grow in.
Dr Sarah Pearson
CEO, CBR Innovation Network
60 BOOSTING HIGH-IMPACT ENTREPRENEURSHIP IN AUSTRALIA
In addition, a number of universities are planning substantial new entrepreneurship programs that will be implemented in the
coming years. Examples include:
Monash University Monash University is developing multiple programs with the objective of cultivating a culture of
student entrepreneurship, supporting the creation of more startups and spinouts and producing
more experienced, well-trained entrepreneurs.
The programs to be delivered commencing in 2016 include an idea pitching competition, a
startup accelerator, a network of experienced mentors, a fellowship program to supports students
as internal champions of entrepreneurship, a seed fund and an alumni angel investor network.
University of
Technology Sydney
(UTS)
UTS is catalysing an innovation precinct “Piivot” aimed at growing the existing vibrant startup
ecosystem in Ultimo. Services to be provided by Piivot will include internships and mentoring for
students, hosting events focused on high-impact entrepreneurship, development of new startup
spaces, mapping the startup ecosystem and producing data on its performance.
Piivot is modelled on successful overseas startup hubs such as Tech City London and Hub
Singapore, and is supported by the NSW Government and multiple industry partners.
Ormond College,
University of
Melbourne
Ormond College is launching the Wade Institute in 2016. It will be a dedicated entrepreneurship
institute that delivers undergraduate and postgraduate courses, including a master degree in
entrepreneurship plus several short courses. The institute will operate from a dedicated facility
being built following a A$10m donation from alumnus Peter Wade. The institute will also provide
a ?exible workspace for students to pursue their startup ideas and receive mentoring from
experienced entrepreneurs. It has been modelled on entrepreneurship centres at universities such
as MIT, Cambridge and Technion.
At the University of Melbourne we are working to complement our world-class research by
infusing entrepreneurialism into the culture—ensuring that in everything we do there is a clear
sense of opportunity, an appetite for making a real diference, and an understanding of how to align
interests in pursuit of a common goal.
Recognising that no single activity will achieve this objective, we will be rolling out a suite
of initiatives— both top-down and bottom-up—aimed at building systematic commercial
engagement machinery to enhance the richness and diversity of university life.
Doron Ben-Meir
Executive Director, Research, Innovation and Commercialisation, University of Melbourne
61 CHAPTER 5 A WAY FORWARD FOR AUSTRALIA
IMPLICATIONS
Te Australian Government has been actively engaging with
the university sector in recent times to develop improved
funding frameworks that incentivise universities to produce
teaching and research outputs that are of greater beneft
to Australian society. Tis engagement is critical to the
development of a coordinated national approach.
Australia is the only country in the OECD that does
not have a science and innovation strategy, and lacks a
consistent narrative about how the country will transition
to a knowledge-intensive economy.
117
A growing
number of informed commentators have been urging the
government to take urgent action to set a new course for
the future Australian economy. Among the most recent
was Catherine Livingstone, President of the Business
Council of Australia, who recently noted that, “there have
been 60 reviews into innovation and at some point we have to
stop asking the question and act (…) we need a more integrated
plan for innovation, including encouraging startups and
entrepreneurs.”
118
A comprehensive national innovation and entrepreneurship
policy would provide the much-needed vision for the
transition to a knowledge-intensive economy, and a
meaningful long-term funding commitment from
government would enable implementation of programs on a
scale not previously seen in this country.
Such a policy would ideally be a comprehensive, whole-of-
government approach, developed in consultation with key
industry groups, entrepreneurs and thought leaders to ensure
it can achieve signifcant change, and that it complements
other current and proposed strategic initiatives.
Failing to make a clear distinction between high-impact
entrepreneurship initiatives and other entrepreneurship
initiatives (e.g. small businesses or social ventures) can dilute
impact and create confusion about objectives.
Te government has several programs which provide
support to entrepreneurs. Te Entrepreneurs’ Programme
(in particular the Accelerating Commercialisation
stream) is central to this, although its focus is largely
on commercialising technologies and inventions within
established businesses.
PROVIDE APPROPRIATE INCENTIVES FOR
UNIVERSITIES
Te main sources of government funding for publicly funded
research in Australia are:
119
` A$2.7 billion for competitive research grants and other
research support; and
` A$1.9 billion through performance based block funding.
Tis funding is distributed to universities based on a range
of measures of university performance, of which research
output (as measured by peer reviewed research publications)
forms a signifcant part.
Te way in which the government assesses the performance
of universities is a strong driver of behaviours, since it afects
not just overall university funding allocations but also
the reputations of individual academics and how they are
viewed by their employers in terms of funding support and
promotion prospects.
Te process by which the government allocates funding to
Australian universities does not take account of the impact
of research (whether economic, environmental or societal).
Tis produces three major consequences:
1. It drives academics to focus their eforts on producing
publications rather than on engaging with industry or
teaching students;
2. It discourages academics from pursuing applied research
and commercial proof-of-concept work that will not
lend itself to publications in top journals, even if it could
lead to signifcant economic impact via creation of new
technologies and startups; and
3. It steers academics toward research topics that are
of academic interest and therefore likely to lead to
publications in top journals and citations from other
researchers, whether or not the research ultimately
represents a good investment of taxpayer funds.
Excellence in Research for Australia (ERA) is just one of the
mechanisms by which the federal government distributes
research funding to universities. It has been in place since
2010 and is used to rate university research on measures of
research quality.*
* The Australian Research Council (ARC) is responsible for administering ERA. More information is available at http://www.arc.gov.au/excellence-research-australia
62 BOOSTING HIGH-IMPACT ENTREPRENEURSHIP IN AUSTRALIA
Te ERA framework is an important lever through which
the government can infuence the behaviour of universities.
ERA focusses on the excellence and quality of research and
does not measure the impact that this research has on the
economy and society. Tere is support for the measurement
of economic, environmental and societal impact which
would also then feed into the various mechanisms by which
the government distributes funding to universities.
Te government has initiated two reviews relevant to this
issue—a review of research training arrangements by the
Australian Council of Learned Academies (ACOLA) and
a review of research funding, system performance measures
and policy settings by Dr Ian Watt AO.
Te current reviews of research training and policy settings
present a timely opportunity to increase the emphasis on
economic impact measures such as startups created by
staf and graduates, capital raised and jobs created—with a
particular focus on STEM disciplines.
Incentives linked to funding would also encourage
universities to recognise academic staf for engagement in
student entrepreneurship activities. Few universities have
frameworks of this nature in place today. When staf do get
involved with student entrepreneurship, it is often an un-
funded activity or a labour of love.
In contrast, universities in the UK are assessed not just
on quality of research but also their impact. Te Research
Excellence Framework uses impact as one of the three main
elements for assessing research and allocating funding to
universities. For the 2014 REF, impact was defned as “an
efect on, change or beneft to the economy, society, culture,
public policy or services, health, the environment or quality
of life, beyond academia” and includes entrepreneurial
activities such as entrepreneurship education.
120–123
MEASURE ENTREPRENEURIAL ACTIVITY AND
OUTCOMES
Tere would be immense value in undertaking an annual
survey and data collection exercise to inform government
and universities about the efectiveness of new student
entrepreneurship programs, to help demonstrate the impact of
these programs over time and allow for greater international
visibility of Australia’s entrepreneurial ecosystem.
Most Australian universities do not track or report on the
numbers of students who have completed entrepreneurship
courses or participated in experiential entrepreneurship
programs such as incubators, accelerators, internships or
overseas missions. Nor do they attempt in any consistent
way to measure graduate entrepreneurship outcomes such as
companies formed, capital raised, jobs created or economic
value created.
A lack of available data was highlighted as a concern in
multiple interviews with stakeholders in the university sector.
A consequence of having limited data is that universities
and the government have little information about the
current level of student exposure to entrepreneurship or the
outcomes being produced.
COMMITMENT FROM UNIVERSITIES
A commitment from universities to establish best practice
student entrepreneurship initiatives would greatly
increase the number of graduates that have an exposure to
entrepreneurship and practical skills, and in turn lead to
more startups and a higher rate of success.
Te eforts of universities will be most efective if
entrepreneurship becomes a visible part of the university’s
mission and vice-chancellors and university leadership teams
demonstrate a genuine commitment to entrepreneurship by
advocacy and support of entrepreneurship initiatives.
In parallel, universities could encourage greater involvement
of academic staf in entrepreneurial endeavours by
recognising and rewarding entrepreneurship activity,
including supporting student entrepreneurship, as a part of
career progression.
*
* On 7 October 2015, Universities Australia released its 2016 policy statement highlighting the role of universities in educating students for innovation and
entrepreneurialism. (Universities Australia (2016), Keep it Clever: Policy Statement 2016., p.3)
63 CHAPTER 5 A WAY FORWARD FOR AUSTRALIA
Te implementation of a national program of
entrepreneurship education could be guided by a
steering group comprising entrepreneurs and leading
entrepreneurship educators, who would help universities
to ensure that programs align with global best practice and
remain up to date in what is a rapidly evolving discipline
area, as well as assist the government in reviewing and
assessing proposals from universities for funding to support
delivery of programs.
HARNESSING INDUSTRY
Industry (including startups and more established
companies) has an important role to play in contributing to
the development and implementation of entrepreneurship
programs in universities. Tis engagement should include
providing universities with feedback on skills needs,
providing opportunities for work-integrated learning and
internships, advising on program design, providing suitably
experienced mentors, and supporting eforts to connect the
university with activities in the broader startup ecosystem.
It will take some time to organically build up a large cadre
of experienced entrepreneurs who can cycle back into the
startup ecosystem to guide new entrepreneurs.
Tis talent shortage could be short-circuited by injecting
successful entrepreneurs from around the world to help
bridge the expertise gap whilst the local talent pool matures.
Te establishment of a prestigious national Entrepreneurs-
In-Residence program would be an efective way of
engaging successful entrepreneurs in Australian universities.
Tese positions could be created within universities and be
focused on actively engaging with students in experiential
entrepreneurship education, and supporting the creation and
growth of startups.
With suitable reward and recognition, universities would
be able to attract high-calibre individuals who will act as a
catalyst within the university and as a conduit to the local
and international startup ecosystem.
64 BOOSTING HIGH-IMPACT ENTREPRENEURSHIP IN AUSTRALIA
REFERENCES
115 M. H. Morris, D. F. Kuratko, J. R. Cornwall, Entrepreneurship
programs and the modern university, (Edward Elgar
Publishing, 2013), p.12.
116 University of Sydney, Technology venture creation
(ELEC5701), http://sydney.edu.au/courses/uos/ELEC5701
117 Ofce of the Chief Scientist, Science, Technology, Engineering
and Mathematics: Australia’s future, (2014), Australian
Government, Canberra.
118 Australian Broadcasting Corporation, Q&A Transcript,
(2015), http://www.abc.net.au/tv/qanda/txt/s4286225.htm
119 Department of Industry and Department of Education,
Boosting the commercial returns from research, (2014), https://
submissions.education.gov.au/Forms/higher-education-
research/Documents/Boosting%20Commercial%20
Returns%20from%20Research%20%20-%2024102014.pdf
120 Higher Education Funding Council for England, Research
Excellence Framework, http://www.ref.ac.uk/
121 Higher Education Funding Council for England, Evaluation
of REF, (2014), http://www.hefce.ac.uk/rsrch/REFreview/
122 Higher Education Funding Council for England, RAND
Europe, Preparing Impact Submissions for REF 2014: An
evaluation, (2014), p.16, http://www.hefce.ac.uk/media/
HEFCE,2014/Content/Pubs/Independentresearch/2015/
REF,impact,submissions/REF_impact_prep_process-
approach.pdf
123 European Commission, Supporting the Entrepreneurial
Potential of Higher Education: Case Studies,(2015), p.48,
http://sephe.eu/fleadmin/sepHe/documents/sepHE_D5_
Final-Report_Appendix_2015-05-31_v1.0.pdf
CHAPTER 6
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
CHAPTER 6
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
66 BOOSTING HIGH-IMPACT ENTREPRENEURSHIP IN AUSTRALIA
Te valuable contributions of the following individuals to
this report are gratefully acknowledged:
Professor Ian Chubb AC—Australia’s Chief Scientist
Dr Roslyn Prinsley - National Adviser, Science and Maths
Education and Industry, Ofce of the Chief Scientist
Dr Krisztian Baranyai - Senior Research Ofcer, Ofce of the
Chief Scientist
Jennifer Bowles—Senior Communications Ofcer, Ofce of the
Chief Scientist
Dr Katherine Leigh—Senior Communications Ofcer, Ofce of
the Chief Scientist
Dr Samira Hassan—Research Ofcer, Ofce of the Chief Scientist
Hamish Hawthorne—CEO, ATP Innovations
Joshua Flannery - Student Entrepreneur Development Manager,
UNSW Innovations
Elliot Smith—CEO, HSK Instruments
Alan Noble—Engineering Director, Google Australia
Elizabeth Eastland—CEO, iAccelerate Centre, University of
Wollongong
Dr Dean Moss—CEO, UniQuest
Professor Mark Hofman—Dean of Engineering, UNSW
Marita Cheng—CEO of 2Mar Robotics
Dr Craig Davis—CEO, Grifn Accelerator
Professor Per Davidsson—Director, Australian Centre for
Entrepreneurship Research
Dr Jefrey Tobias—Adjunct Professor, Entrepreneurship at AGSM,
UNSW
Dr Charlie Day—Director, Carlton Connect Initiative, University
of Melbourne
Miguel Wood—Director, Tin Alley beta
Rohan Workman—Director, Melbourne Accelerator Program
(MAP)
Dr Sarah Pearson—CEO, CBR Innovation Network
Professor Julie Cogin—Director, Australian Graduate school of
Management, UNSW
Matt Barrie—CEO, Freelancer
Alan McAlpine—Manager—Careers & Employment, Queensland
University of Technology; Past President, National Association of
Graduate Careers Advisory Services
Bill Bartee—Partner, Blackbird Ventures
Amir Nissen—CEO, AngelCube
Scott Handsaker—CEO, Startup Victoria
James Alexander—Founder and Program Manager, Incubate,
University of Sydney Union
Dr Buzz Palmer—Lecturer in Entrepreneurship and Technology
Commercialisation, Monash University
Fiona Lewis—Project Ofcer, Ofce of the Vice-Provost
(Research & Research Infrastructure), Monash University
Joe Vasquez—Founder, StartX accelerator, Stanford University
Dr Larry Marshall—Chief Executive Ofcer, CSIRO
Beau Leese—General Manager, Strategy, Innovation &
International, CSIRO
Rufus Black—Interim Director, Wade Institute for
Entrepreneurship, University of Melbourne
Dr Martin Bliemel—Senior Lecturer in Innovation and
Entrepreneurship, School of Strategy and Entrepreneurship,
UNSW Business School
Warren Hogarth—Partner, Sequoia Capital
Professor Jana Matthews—Director, Centre for Business Growth,
University of South Australia
Dr Tim Kastelle—Senior Lecturer, University of Queensland
Business School
Dr Peter Devine—CEO, Uniseed
Peter Bradd—CEO, StartupAUS
Professor David Lloyd—Vice Chancellor, University of South
Australia
Steve Leonard—Director, Infocomm Development Authority,
Singapore
Anya Eldan—General Manager, Early Stage and Incubator
Programs, Ministry of Economy, Israel
Avi Hasson—Chief Scientist, Ministry of Economy, Israel
Garry Visontay—Partner, Sydney Seed Fund
Professor Michael Cardew-Hall—Pro-Vice Chancellor,
Innovation, Te Australian National University
Adrian Turner—CEO, Data61, CSIRO
Rohan McDougall—Director, IP Commercialisation, Curtin
University and Vice Chair, Knowledge Commercialisation
Australia
Professor Maurice Pagnucco—Head of School of Computer
Science and Engineering, University of New South Wales
67 CHAPTER 6 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
APPENDIX A
TERMS OF REFERENCE
1. A clear defnition of entrepreneurship as it relates
to STEM disciplines, in particular identifying the
diference between small business entrepreneurship
and high-impact entrepreneurship. Tis will include a
discussion of the following points:
a. Te cultural dimensions of stimulating high-impact
entrepreneurship in Australia and possible approaches
to addressing cultural obstacles
b. Te arguments for high-impact entrepreneurship
as a driver of economic growth and for national
investment in the development of entrepreneurial
skills in STEM students
c. Te distinction between IP commercialisation and
entrepreneurship in a university context
d. Initiatives that have contributed to development
and utilisation of entrepreneurial skills in
STEM students—such as student incubators,
entrepreneurship clubs, overseas placements,
mentoring programs, hackathons, seed funding
mechanisms and university policies.
2. Literature review including peer-reviewed academic
literature and industry publications to identify:
a. Evidence whether there is a correlation between
entrepreneurship education and successful
entrepreneurial outcomes, and an assessment of the
likely causality
b. Leading universities worldwide which have produced
STEM entrepreneurs who have developed signifcant
companies with global reach or global potential
c. Education and other initiatives that these top-
performing universities use to equip STEM students
with entrepreneurship skills
d. Comparative international data on the scale and
impact of entrepreneurship education in universities
e. In particular, focus on initiatives which have
succeeded in developing an entrepreneurial culture
and in changing the ‘traditional’ culture and behaviour
of university academics, students and graduates.
f. Identify what education and other initiatives do not
work in achieving the required outcomes listed above.
3. Identify and construct a map of the skills required for
entrepreneurship.
4. Identify the world’s top universities which have produced
the most STEM entrepreneurs who have developed
signifcant companies with global reach or global
potential.
5. Defne and describe the education and other relevant
initiatives that these universities use to educate STEM
graduates and post graduates. In particular, focus on
initiatives that have been efective in locations that have
not historically had a strong entrepreneurial track record,
and have been successful in changing the culture and
behaviours.
6. Identify the top Australian universities that have
produced the most STEM entrepreneurs. Defne and
describe the education and other relevant initiatives that
these fve universities use to educate STEM graduates
and post graduates, and discuss what needs to happen to
scale these up.
7. Defne the elements of success for entrepreneurial
education for STEM graduates.

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