The National Incubation Center Lahore (NICL) at LUMS, partnered with the University of Saarland, through the TakeUp project, to conduct an introductory course on entrepreneurship for those who were interested in the field, but did not know where to start. This collaboration resulted in the formation of the Entrepreneurship 101 course, a short training course that was designed to give individuals from the LUMS community, with no prior experience, a look into the startup world.
NICL successfully conducted the 2nd batch of Entrepreneurship 101 in July 2022. The participants went through 4 weeks of asynchronous training, with recorded content from the University of Saarland faculty. This mode of training allowed the participants to go over the material at their own pace and convenience. They were asked to form groups and come up with a startup idea on which they would work for the duration of the course.
The content was divided into 4 modules and one module was covered each week. The participants were expected to go over the material and work on the task assigned for that module. At the end of each week, the participants were asked to come to the NICL facility for additional in-person sessions with LUMS faculty, specialized in the field of entrepreneurship. The objective of these sessions was to give the participants a more immersive experience with greater insight into their ideas and advice on how to improve their approach and work. At the end of the 4 weeks, the participants had a grasp of the basics of entrepreneurship and were able to transform their ideas into business pitches.
NICL conducted the Entrepreneurship 101 course to give these individuals the necessary tools to build a foundation for their ideas. The NICL team had encouraged the participants from the first batch to keep working on their ideas even after the course had finished and were proud to see one of the participants get incubated in the Foundry Training held at NICL. The team hopes to see this become a trend for their future cohorts as well.