Training the Trainers: Entrepreneurship in a Box

The Berkeley Method (Educating Educators)

This initiative is designed to remedy the yawning gap in management, business, commercial, and entrepreneurial skills on the part of the educated population.

In consultation with the relevant faculty members from the Haas School of Business and leading business leaders and professors from developing countries, we will develop a semester long curriculum designed to impart the fundamentals of management, marketing, and entrepreneurship to non-business majors in institutions of higher learning in developing countries. Depending upon our level of success, we may also eventually extend the training to high school students, create a curriculum for high schoolers, and instruct top performing high school teachers on the Berkeley method.

Initially, we will hold special training sessions at the Haas School of Business at UC Berkeley for leading business and management professors from the developing world as well as skilled pedagogues from other disciplines, who would be capable of teaching “Entrepreneurship in a Box: The Berkeley Method of Management, Marketing, and Entrepreneurship” in their respective countries. Upon completing our training program, instructors will be certified to teach the Berkeley method, under the supervision of Haas instructors, who will provide part of the instruction through distant learning, to students from varying disciplines and majors enrolled in tertiary education in public and private colleges and universities.

The course will provide participants with a grounding in the fundamentals of business and management while raising their awareness of the nature and process of entrepreneurship, and will include instructions on how to start, run, and grow businesses and innovate inside an existing company. Participants will also be immersed in the Lean Launchpad Method, developed by UC Berkeley’s Steve Blank. The course will be designed to conform to the context of the prevailing milieu in various countries.