When LaunchPad Directors Paul Gladen (University of Montana) and Peter Finnegan (University College Cork) met face to face for the first time at the Forbes 30 under 30 Summit in Boston in October 2016, they weren’t planning on pioneering a global entrepreneurship exchange program that one of their students has since described as “life-changing,” but that’s what happened. 

Paul, Peter, and now LaunchPad Director Trevor Huffmaster (Montana State University), agree that in an increasingly globally and connected world, an international mindset is an integral component to entrepreneurial and career success. They also agree that an immersive cross-border experience—comprised of a mini-internship and multiple foreign startup ecosystem meetings and interactions—would be hugely successful in fostering this perspective.

After over a year of preparation, communication, and planning, seven students from UCC traveled to Missoula and ten students from UM and MSU traveled to Cork for two weeks each in late May and early June 2018.

Peter, Paul, and Trevor have found that the timing of the program is critical in order to facilitate their students’ participation, so that they can still participate in other internship, work, or entrepreneurship activities over the summer. As such, both programs are held just after the spring semester or just before the fall semester.

“My experience in Cork was my first introduction to international entrepreneurship--and an amazing one at that,” said MSU student Coryn Johnson. “The program really tailored itself to each individual’s interests while simultaneously offering an inside glimpse into southern Ireland. Within the first days, we were grouped into three teams, each paired with a corresponding local startup company. I dove into researching GDPR guidelines for my startup’s privacy policy statement while others looked into questionnaire materials for pilot studies on non-invasive medical devices.”

The exchange program in each country involved a variety of entrepreneurial-focused professional experiences, including meeting and networking with local founders and venture capitalists, economic development and governmental representatives, and leaders of academic, research institutes, and innovation centers. Intensive, mini-internships with local startups in Cork included funding and market research work for an outdoor sporting goods manufacturer and bookkeeping company. (Participants also had an opportunity to visit some of the local sights and world famous attractions such as Yellowstone National Park and Blarney Castle.)

“Visits don’t necessarily need to be to Silicon Valley,” Deanna says. “Austin, North Carolina, New York, Boulder, Dublin… are all known to have critical densities of startups and investors. Even staying in town or going to the nearest large city could provide opportunities for students to meet angel investor groups or see startups in coworking spaces (both of which may sponsor a program). Partnering with your school’s development team can also be mutually beneficial in terms of finding sponsors and individuals or businesses students can visit.

Fostering Cross-campus Relationships

In addition to student learning and engagement, another benefit from this collaboration has been new connections between other areas of the three universities. Specifically, faculty and staff focused on food systems research and microbiomes at Montana State and University College Cork have been introduced to one another and are communicating about some proposed shared projects and initiatives.

Benefits

• Exposure to a different kind of entrepreneurial thinking; Experiencing and understanding the opportunities and challenges of startups in a different country, economy, and culture.
• Providing students real-life insight related to critical geopolitical shifts like Brexit, global economic organizations like the Europen Union, and international beachhead markets (like Ireland).
• Encouraging relationship-building between students from different, often non-business schools, with those taking a more traditional approach to the study of entrepreneurship.
• The development and nurturing of transferable skills, the very skills that will stand students in good stead, regardless of whether they choose to pursue an entrepreneurial career pathway follow a more conventional career route.

Challenges

• Impact on student attention and focus of crossing time-zones and the resulting jet lag.
  Possible solutions include asking students to arrive a day or two earlier to be more acclimatized to the local timezone and/or restricting meetings to mornings only during the first week of the program.

• Promoting the program as a study abroad initiative.
  Possible solutions include engaging students earlier to increase awareness of the opportunity and better articulating the experiential and unique entrepreneurship-focused benefits of this program versus other study abroad “classroom” experiences.

Logistics, Financials, and Program Support

LaunchPads at each of the three participating schools approached the administration and program budgets (including travel, credit, etc.) slightly differently, making the high level of trust and collaboration between network campuses all the more important. They all agree that hosting approximately 20 students, along with one home-school staff member as a chaperone, is about the maximum.

University of Montana Program and Montana State University Program - 3 credit hour course (with some pre- and post work); Approx. $1,500-$2,000 in tuition/program fee covers local transportation, staff host costs, and some tourist site expenses; Flights, not covered by school, cost around $1,400; Student meal costs not included.

University College Cork Program - No academic credit given, though developing a digital badge is being considered for the 2020 program; housing and meals provided by host school; No tuition/program fee and €500 flight subsidy.

LaunchPad continuation agreement schools have been granted $10,000 to use specifically for a summer experience, and all three schools plan to use some or all of that funding to help subsidize and/or offer scholarships to participants.