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From PhD to Innovator

Start: End: Location: online
Event type:
  • CET
  • Workshop
Awaken your founding spirit! With Young Entrepreneurs in Science (YES) you explore your entrepreneurial potential. Together with other PhD students and postdocs from different disciplines, you will learn in our diverse workshop program how your doctoral thesis can become a business idea and finally a company, how Design Thinking can help you and how you can convince an expert jury of your idea in a pitch. Guided by our experienced coaches, you will learn in a group of highly motivated researchers how to turn your doctoral thesis into a business idea. The workshop is free of charge and requires no previous knowledge. The YES Workshop series is supported by the Center for Entrepreneurship & Transfer (CET) of the TU Dortmund University.

Guided by our experienced coaches, you will learn in a group of highly motivated researchers how to turn your doctoral thesis into a business idea. 
The workshop is free of charge and requires no previous knowledge. 

The YES Workshop series is supported by the Center for Entrepreneurship & Transfer (CET) of the TU Dortmund University.

YES have developed a curriculum that reflects the main points of the workshop and at the same time takes sufficient screen breaks into account. The workshop language will be English in order to allow access for international PhD students and postdocs of the universities.


DAY 1: How much startup is in your doctoral thesis? 

Morning 

ENTREPRENEURSHIP AND INNOVATION

Session 1: From PhD to Sciencepreneur (2h)

  • Introduction: What is an entrepreneurial mindset? What is innovation?
  • Explore: Which entrepreneurial skills do you already have as a researcher?
  • Meet the Role Models: Ask two entrepreneurs how they transformed their research into businesses 

Afternoon 

ENTREPRENEURIAL SKILLS AND DESIGN THINKING/USER CENTRIC DESIGN

Session 2: Ideation: How to turn your PhD into a startup idea (2h)

  • find a hidden gem in your research project  

Session 3: Prototyping: How to make your idea tangible and test its critical function (2h)

  • make your idea tangible 
     

DAY 2: Iterate & Pitch

Morning 

PITCH TRAINING

Session 4: Testing, Feedback und Iteration (1h)

Session 5: Your Online Pitch (2h)

  • Develop and practice your online pitch
  • Receive feedback from your university’s startup experts

Afternoon 

CORPORATE INNOVATION AND INTRAPRENEURSHIP (3-5 pm)

Session 6: Intrapreneurship and Corporate Innovation (2h)

  • Insights into how innovation is practiced in the corporate world and possible career perspectives for scientists

In consultation with Evonik, the economic partner at the Dortmund site, we were able to define the following workshop dates: May 4-5, 2021.

Applications possible until April, 27, 2021 here.

If you have any questions regarding the program, please do not hesitate to contact Bernd Rathmer of the Centre for Entrepreneurship and Transfer (CET).