Mission Statement
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| "CTI Entrepreneurship with its national programme “venturelab” organizes project-oriented training modules for students and young entrepreneurs in the technology field." |
From Academia to Business: CTI trains entrepreneurs
CTI offers in the framework of CTI Entrepreneurship the consulting and training programme “venturelab”. The programme is targeted for potential and existing young entrepreneurs and sensitizes since 2004 students primarily from the technological sectors with tailormade training modules for the topic of entrepreneurship and trains startups for success.
The vision of CTI is, to create a relevant contribution to the creation of new jobs in Switzerland in the high-tech environment with high added value. This is done by motivating students in Universities to start their own company as an attractive and rewarding career alternative and the other side to help young entrepreneurs with highly experienced start-up experts in a step by step approach to set up an own company. Venturelab is focusing on the best and most motivated potentials in order to bring promising business ideas into reality which help to strengthen the competitive position and contribute to the future growth of the Swiss economy.
venturelab offers a variety of coaching and training modules. This includes one-day workshops (“venture ideas”), practically-oriented 5 day crash courses (“venture plan”), 5 day coures more advanced start-ups “venture training”) and semester courses for students at universities (“venture challenge”). With “venture leaders” 20 young entrepreneurs have the chance to spend 10 days in a business environment in the USA. The winners will have the opportunity to attend an entrepreneurship course at the renowned Babson College in Boston and will have to chance to meet potential investors and business partners. At the end of each training module, a jury of potential investors and business angels judges the individual business idea and give valid recommendation for improvements.
venturelab is active at almost all universities and technical colleges. At the expert level, venturelab also works closely together with CTI Start-up. The use of trainers with an entrepreneurial background is undoubtedly one of the success factors.
Young entrepreneur prizes and competitions are an excellent opportunity not only to draw attention to individual start-ups but also to place entrepreneurial independence in the limelight; venturelab graduates are amongst the most outstanding achievers in this regard.
From 2004 up to 2011, more than 22'000 students and start-ups used the opportunity with venturelab to further develop their entrepreneurial ideas. 26% of the participants have an educational background from ETH/EPFL, 27% from other universities and 47% from the universities of applied sciences. 18% of the participants are female.