Lydiah Igweh, Director of Enterprise Support at Oxford Brookes University, shares why she decided to join the network and what they are currently working on.
We joined the Incubator and Accelerator (IAN) to connect with like minded peers in the Higher Education Institute sector and those in the incubator and accelerator space. We hope to be inspired and encouraged as we continually develop and nurture our entrepreneurial community at Oxford Brookes.
I had heard about IAN through colleagues at other institutions at various events throughout last year, and they encouraged me to consider joining. I was also aware of the Centre for Entrepreneurs and the amazing work it was doing.
At the conference, I enjoyed hearing from the international colleagues from Europe and the USA as it offered a global perspective to entrepreneurship and innovation development. I also enjoyed addressing sector challenges as a group in a friendly and collaborative environment. I left with plenty of ideas bubbling in my head. The networking opportunity was also welcomed and invaluable.
Since the conference, we’ve been working on developing a 5 year plan for Enterprise and Entrepreneurship at Oxford Brookes and more imminently the launch of our COVID-19 Strategy. We’ve devised a virtual offering to respond to some of the challenges facing the start-ups we support as well as our soon to be recent grads who are anxious about their graduate opportunities post COVID-19. It’s been very insightful to say the least and I think we’ve learnt a lot about offering a blended approach moving forward.
Going forward, we hope to tap into proven effective resources that other members of the network have developed to help us save time, money and avoid mistakes through learning from others. We also hope to contribute to the community by sharing initiatives, challenges and ideas from our perspective and our users perspectives. We’d be keen to also host a few IAN events throughout the year!