IDEA House: Entrepreneurship

Background

IDEA was formed in 2005, financed by grants from the Danish State as well as donations from private companies and munici- palities/counties and with the aim of raising the profile of entrepreneurship and the option of starting your own business as a career choice amongst students and graduates. IDEA does this by promoting innovation and entrepreneurship among students and networks.

Aims and targets

The purpose of IDEA is to promote innovation and entrepreneurship among students and those fully trained from higher educations and to increase growth and bridge building to the surrounding society.
This is done by financially supporting projects, development activities and research, by doing development work and experience exchange and by developing courses, educations and networks.
One project example is IDEA House, which  offers offices where students can work with idea development, receive advice and support from business people and meet like-minded people.

Strategy and actions

IDEA House offers three different programmes, depending on whether the individual has his or her own business idea, wants to develop one or rather wants to further develop others’ ideas:

• Business Pilot is the programme for those who have a business idea almost ready for the market
• Idea Pilot is a simulator for business ideas. Here it is possible to develop a business idea that is not necessarily ready for the market right away
• Co Pilot is the programme to further develop finished business ideas and others’ ideas

So far there are nine IDEA Houses.

Monitoring and evaluation

Funding/Cost effectiveness

IDEA is financed by state grants as well as donations from both Danfoss and municipalities / counties.

Sustainability/Transferability

In its new government bill, “Society of Possibilities”, the Danish government has decided to continue the proactive course towards students on further and higher educations, who are all to be offered education in entrepreneurship. IDEA is central to this policy.

Outcomes/impacts

Achievements

In addition to the IDEA House projects, IDEA organizes a variety of conferences and events on the theme of enterprise. It also has a competitive 'pool' grant-giving system to support enterprise ventures.

Success factors

IDEA is a network organisation so far consisting of 88 institutions, organisations and companies. Objectives and visions are established by the Council and the Board of Directors. The national secretariat handles day-to-day operations.  There is also an international advisory board of enterprise experts.

Unintended impacts

Strengths and weaknesses