Silicon Valley Trip for Environment Student
A Lancaster University student has been given the chance to hone his entrepreneurial skills at the heart of Silicon Valley.
Environmental Science student Akanimo Odon won a coveted place on the Roundtable on Entrepreneurship Education (REE) Fellows Program at Stanford University. The week-long programme is designed for undergraduate and graduate science students from around the world with an interest in entrepreneurship.
27-year-old Akanimo was part of one of nine international teams of five-six students given the task of developing a global environmentally driven market for electric vehicles.
The team then had to give a formal pitch on their results to a panel of venture capitalists.
Akanimo Odon - a PhD student working in the Lancaster Environment Centre with Professor Kevin Jones and Dr Kirk Semple - also got the opportunity to take part in field trips to Silicon Valley companies such as Google, and meetings with entrepreneurs and investors.
Lancaster University Management School, Institute for Entrepreneurship and Enterprise Development, sponsored Akan’s trip as part of the Science Enterprise Programme.
Nigerian-born Akanimo, who was the only UK-based student on the programme, said it had been a unique experience.
“I was working with students from all over the world, meeting entrepreneurs and business leaders. It was a really fascinating way to gain some business experience and think about the ways in which my academic research in Environmental Science can be applied. We also got to visit some amazing places in Silicon Valley.”
Dr Frank Cave of IEED said: “ One of the objectives of the Science Enterprise Programme is to encourage research scientists at Lancaster to think and behave both entrepreneurially and globally, The REE Fellows Programme is an excellent mechanism for this and we were delighted that Akanimo was selected in a world wide competition.”
For further details of the Roundtables on Entrepreneurship Education (REE) Fellows Program at Stanford University go to http://ree.stanford.edu/usa/fellows.html
For more information on Lancaster University Management School, Institute for Entrepreneurship and Enterprise Development go to http://www.lums.lancs.ac.uk/departments/Entrep/