This week saw the first workshop of the 2017 Ent-Ex programme. The workshops aim to help young talents develop entrepreneurial skills using the EIIL’s masterclass methodology. After 2 successful events at the Vrij University of Amsterdam, this year’s Ent-Ex NL took place at the fabulous facilities of the Haagse Hoogeschool (Technical High School of The Hague) on 3rd to 5th May.
This was the first of the revised three-day format workshops, but participants rose to the challenge and presented output guides both as complete, and as entertaining, as those in previous years. Guest entrepreneurs were interviewed for their views on the skills which had helped them to their success, and how these could be developed. A ‘Marketplace’ activity provided participants with their own event to practice their effective networking.
The local organising committee this year included five nominees from CB&I who joined EIIL Programme Manager Lara Egli and students from the HHS. The virtual committee helped to source local facilities, services and entertainment for participants, and to promote the event – a great way to develop their own networks outside their company.
‘This is the first time I’ve been involved with EIIL’ said CB&I piping engineer Pieter Snoek. The build-up to the event was great – we were invited to a networking lunch with talent team workshops held at our office and to see what might be coming for us in the future. I got some good advice from these older colleagues which helped with the Ent-Ex preparations, but also with my job. I didn’t know what to expect from Ent-Ex but it was certainly very different from anything I’ve done before, and really inspiring. I really hope now I will be selected for our talent team in a few years. In the mean-time it’s great to be involved with the alumni network.’
Ent-Ex DE will take place for the first time in Cologne this year on 3rd – 5th July. Facilities at the Technical University of Cologne have been sourced with the support of Covestro nominees on the local organising committee, and the event has already allowed us to establish partnership discussions with university incubator group HGNC, The Chamber of Commerce of Cologne, Stadt Cologne and NRW Invest.
Ent-Ex Barcelona will follow on 10th – 13th July at the facilities of Barcelona Activa, the city government agency responsible for employment, business and entrepreneurship. This will be the third year for the event in Barcelona and the relationships built during the earlier events are coming to fruition hughesairco.com. Regional government agency GenCAT Empren, local Junior Enterprise JEDI, student engineering society BEST, and Ent-Ex alumni have promoted widely; participants from EIIL members Covestro and CABB will join students from Belgium, Italy, Spain, Portugal, Poland, Romania, Netherlands, France and Germany.