Educators Forum theme: ”Preparing Future Entrepreneurs”
#ACERE2023

When: Tuesday, 7 February 2023 – 9.00am-5.00pm
Where: The University of Queensland St Lucia campus – MOD West, building 11A – Room 130
Registration: Registration to the full ACERE 2023 includes access to Entrepreneurship Education. For only the Entrepreneurship Education Forum register here Registration and Fees. Select Delegate General and then select Educators Forum only. The cost is $100.

What is next for entrepreneurship education? How do we best prepare future entrepreneurs? If you are at the forefront and making a difference in this space the ACERE Educators’ Forum is for you. Facilitate your best workshop or give a short `show and share` TED-talk style presentation, learn from the experts developing cutting edge approaches and meet others passionate about entrepreneurship education.

Educators Forum Program

This one-day forum aims to be an interactive personal development platform for academics, pracademics and industry representatives at the intersection of entrepreneurship and education. Participants will have the opportunity to learn from champion educators at the forefront of supporting entrepreneurs and exchange innovative learning approaches and teaching tools. Participants will come away with a new suite of learning materials, inspiration to apply them and an expanded network of colleagues who share a passion for supporting future entrepreneurs.

To facilitate knowledge sharing, we have developed two focus areas for the day: 1) How high schools can contribute to preparing future entrepreneurs and 2) Supporting entrepreneurs to navigate the startup ecosystem. Participants will have the opportunity to take a deep dive in their area of interest or mix and mingle across the program. Morning sessions will showcase keynotes and panel discussions before breaking into sessions for show and share among all participants.

Keynote Speakers

Nicole Dyson

Nicole is a globally recognized expert and practitioner in project-based learning and youth entrepreneurship. She is the founder of Future Anything, an award-winning, curriculum-aligned entrepreneurship program for high school students, the founder of YouthX, Australia’s only startup accelerator program for school-aged entrepreneurs, and the founder of Catapult Cards, a design thinking tool for corporates and classrooms.

Baden U’Ren

Baden U’Ren is an internationally recognised entrepreneurship educator and innovation professional, a multiple company founder, and has a background in investment banking and private equity. He works in two main fields, corporate innovation and education, and is available for individual engagements.

Nick Shewring

Nick Shewring Founder & CEO of Wonderlife. He is a serial entrepreneur with entrepreneurship and innovation in his blood. His experience includes co-founding BizDojo, New Zealand’s leading chain of startup hubs, where he became a trusted mentor and advisor for many of New Zealand’s fastest-growing tech companies. Nick has also led mobile product innovation at Air New Zealand and rethinking innovation in the WaterTech space as GM for WaterStart. Nick has coached and mentored hundreds of startup teams and has a significant network in the local and international startup ecosystem. His specialty is bringing people together to achieve impressive things.

Aaron Birkby

I am passionate about empowering ambitious entrepreneurs to grow bigger, faster by providing investment and support as the co-founder of Tribe Global Ventures. My background includes over two decades building and supporting technology companies to grow global, as a founder, advisor, investor, and facilitator. My clients have included Google, YouTube, Novartis, the UK Government, Universities, super funds, investors and entrepreneurs.

Lance Newey

Title: Our Education Opportunity: A Generation of Developmental Entrepreneurs

Dr Lance Newey is a Senior Lecturer in Social Entrepreneurship at UQ Business School. Lance specialises in the application of developmental psychology to assist leaders and entrepreneurs undertake transformative personal, organisational and/or community change. Lance pioneered the “Entrepreneurship for Community Wellbeing” program which works with Latin American communities to link their entrepreneurial initiatives to maximize community wellbeing. Beginning in Colombia, the success of the program has now spread to disadvantaged communities in Chile, Ecuador, Peru and Mexico. More recently, Lance worked with the City of Anchorage Alaska to help them turn around from polarised gridlock towards regional renewal. These research programs have been funded by a small group of local Brisbane primary and secondary schools in a whole-of-education-system strategy aimed at the development of a new generation of systems leader capable of transformative change. The most recent output of this is the study program “An Introduction to Wellbeing Polarity Leadership for 21st century Parents and Young Emerging Leaders”, which will be shared in today’s Educator’s Forum.

Theme 1: How high schools can contribute to preparing future entrepreneurs?

Rationale: Entrepreneurial capability (mindset and action) is widely seen as key to how societies can develop sustainable solutions to their wellbeing issues. All levels of the education system can have a role to play in building this capability. Doing so can involve building two types of skills: 1) baseline, where the focus is on entrepreneurship at the level of individual projects and new businesses and 2) frontier, where entrepreneurial capability is applied to larger entities like cities, regions and countries. This High School Stream gives aspiring high schools a taste of both skillsets. The morning session showcases exemplar high schools and their entrepreneurship programs. The afternoon session introduces new developments in helping entrepreneurs to be systems thinkers and thereby create larger wellbeing impacts while also providing opportunities for educators to showcase their own innovations.

Who is this Session for? Interested in introducing entrepreneurship to your school but not sure how? Looking for exemplars? Want to hear about new developments in the application of entrepreneurship to creating better societies? This session is for you.

Aim: That teachers walk away with a sense of 1) the importance of entrepreneurship education for young emerging leaders to address societal issues and 2) practical how-to’s for curricular/extra-curricular initiatives.

Theme 2: Supporting entrepreneurs to navigate the startup ecosystem

Rationale: Coursework programs for entrepreneurship have grown tremendously in the past decade, including some universities embedding entrepreneurship fundamentals across all undergraduate programs. But, what about learning experiences beyond the classroom? How can students, alumni and members of the broader community who want to become more entrepreneurial but don’t want to commit to a full degree program? This stream covers support for entrepreneurship beyond degree programs, including MOOCs, microcredentials, private sector training, incubators, accelerators, and everything in-between (meetups, competitions, events series, etc.).

Who is this Session for?: This session is for people who offer support for entrepreneurs that is typically not for course credit. Budding entrepreneurs in these programs may be current university students, recent alumni or others further along their careers.

Aim: The aim of this session is twofold. On the one hand, participants will get a sense of the broader ecosystem that supports entrepreneurship. This will help explore where the entrepreneurs they support come from and can go to next as they seek support for their entrepreneurial pursuits. On the other hand, this session expects to share good practices around how to support entrepreneurs, such as mentorship, training, referrals, etc.

Call for Submissions for Afternoon TED-Style show and share and Interactive Practice Sessions

The afternoon sessions are an opportunity to showcase best practice and teaching innovations. If you would like to present in either the TED-style talk (10 min show & share) or run a mock classroom session (Interactive Practice Session) then please follow the following submission instructions:

10-minute TED-style Talk

10-minute TED Style Show and Share. Please provide a brief overview of your teaching innovation. Max 400 words. Please use the following headings.

• Describe the innovation & motivation behind it
• Learning outcomes
• How to implement it
• Results

Please submit your proposal by 5pm, 15th of December. To apply, please fill in the ACERE Educators Forum Submission Form.

30-minute Interactive Session

In this session you would run a mock class. Please provide an overview of the lesson plan. Max 600 words. Please use the following headings:

• Describe the innovation & motivation behind it.
• Learning outcomes
• How to implement it (lesson plan)
• Results

Please submit your proposal by 5pm, 15th of December. To apply, please fill in the ACERE Educators Forum Submission Form.

Educators Forum Conveners

• Lance Newey, The University of Queensland
• Anna Jenkins, The University of Queensland
• Martin Bliemel, University Technology Sydney
• Julienne Senyard, Griffith University