January 2022

Free start-up school offers insight for University’s aspiring social entrepreneurs

By Darren Campbell

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Aspiring entrepreneurs at University College Birmingham have been invited to join a start-up school as part of a new partnership designed to support social enterprise.

Students, graduates and staff at the University can sign up for free to join The Social Entrepreneur (TSE) Start-up School, a six-week online programme which starts next month.

Featuring a series of six evening sessions held virtually on Zoom, the programme aims to introduce learners to the key steps for creating successful social, ethical and mission-led businesses.

Each two-hour session will cover a wide range of themes – from concept design, branding, planning and pitching to funding, legalities, research and scaling up – while there will be up to an hour after each week’s session for discussions and Q&A.

In addition, participants will be invited to a private group on Social Shifters where they will be able to interact and engage with one another outside of sessions, while weekly tasks will be planned to support the development of initiatives.

Richard Leighton

The programme is led by award-winning social entrepreneur Richard Leighton, who has over 15 years of experience in designing, developing and creating socially entrepreneurial initiatives and is a fellow of the School for Social Entrepreneurs and the Royal Society of Arts.

Speaking about the programme, Richard said: “The Social Entrepreneur Start-up School is a great opportunity for University College Birmingham students and graduates to gain a good insight into all the processes involved to successfully design, develop and create social initiatives or mission-led businesses across a number of weeks.

“You will also have lots of other likeminded individuals around you to learn from, as well as potentially collaborate and partner with.”

Sessions will be held on Zoom from 6-8pm (UK time) every Wednesday from 2 February until 9 March – full details of the programme are available here.

The free start-up school is available following the development of a partnership between TSE and University College Birmingham's Enterprise Hive, which provides a wide array of start-up support for students looking to launch and run their own businesses.

For full details about the start-up school and how to apply, please visit the TSE website.

Find out more about the range of business support we provide through our Enterprise Hive.

Are you interested in a career in the business sector, or do you aspire to run your own company? Discover our range of courses within the University College Birmingham Business School.