Skill Training Health and Food Venture Creation

Full course description

In this course you will engage in a business planning project for which you engage in idea generation, feasibility analysis, business modelling, and financial planning. You will start by identifying a novel patented technology that could be used to create a product innovation. In the rest of the course you will explore the market, technical, operational and financial feasibility of the proposed innovation project. A business plan is a call for action: to kick-start product development and/or new venture creation it is key to prepare for the steps needed to turn an identified opportunity into a viable business. In this course you develop both theoretical and practical insight into the start-up processes of new ventures and of the role of business planning in preparing for the eventual pursuing of an opportunity. You will develop a plan for either a new (and independent) enterprise or for a new business activity in an established firm. It is not by accident that this course is the final one in the master’s programme. In many ways it can serve as a capstone course that will challenge you to mobilize what you have learned in the preceding courses. Attempting to develop innovative products out of novel bioscience insights and technologies will force you to show that you can link regulatory constraints, consumption and purchase patterns, production economies and competing solutions to you project. It is one of the few courses that relies on personal initiative as you will have to do substantial field research with potential clients, consumers, partners, advisors and financiers. Where the programme is based on the assumption that food innovation can be based on enabling technologies developed by academics and ingredients manufacturers, this course will allow you to learn what it takes to transform science and technology into business.