Student entrepreneurs band together

Image courtesy NACUE.

The formation of the National Consortium of University Entrepreneurs (NACUE) has happened at a speed appropriate to the Digital Age, taking only seven months from idea to launch.  

NACUE saw its official launch in March, with 32 UK university enterprise societies as members. On board are sponsors including Microsoft and the Indian IT Services company, Tata, along with high-profile advisors such as Julie Meyer, CEO of early-stage advisor Ariadne Capital and the founder of First Tuesday, a networking forum for technology entrepreneurs.

The culmination (to date at least) was a training weekend for presidents of the member societies held in London last month.

Much of the momentum for NACUE has come from founder Victoria Lennox, a Canadian citizen who last July finished her masters in global governance and diplomacy at Oxford University. Lennox took on the presidency of Oxford’s enterprise society, the Oxford Entrepreneurs in July 2008.

“She has tremendous leadership abilities for one so young, and a special gift for getting people excited about something,” says Meyer, who acts as an advisor and mentor to NACUE.   

Lennox quickly demonstrated her ability to get things done at the helm of the Oxford Entrepreneurs. During her presidency, the group pioneered an Ideas2Market Programme that nurtured and developed 13 companies launching this year.

It also increased membership by 60 per cent. Lennox also found time to launch two new groups, Oxford Women in Business and Students in Free Enterprise.

But the idea for NACUE came as Lennox began speaking to her counterpart at Cambridge University about some of the common problems they faced. Although traditionally the relationship between the two universities has been marked by strong rivalry, they decided to work together. “We realised that we were facing the same challenges,” Lennox told Science|Business.

A few more phone calls and ideas were thrown around, a first meeting was held in December 2008 with some other institutions potentially interested in cooperating, and soon the concept for an organisation was born that would bring together and support any and all of the UK’s university enterprise societies which choose to join.

The idea was to help inspire and train enterprise society leaders, connect them with resources, and lobby for increased support for such societies.

NACUE encompasses a number of ideas that are currently being fleshed out, from setting up a portal for information exchange between student entrepreneurs, to training the presidents of entrepreneur societies and establishing a grant-funded development bank to help lesser-endowed institutions run better programmes. The organisation also plans to sponsor an annual award for the best UK Enterprise Society.

NACUE has also given itself the remit of evening out the resources available to universities outside the Oxford–Cambridge axis, which can struggle to attract sponsors or lack the skills and contacts of better-endowed counterparts.   

“They (other enterprise societies) will be able to attract better speakers and have access to role models that will help take them to the next level,” says David Langer, CEO of Oxford-based start-up Groupspaces.com, who has been involved with both the Oxford Entrepreneurs and NACUE.

Partnerships have also been put in place with organisations including the Prince’s Trust and Make Your Mark. NACUE is also researching tie-ups in other countries such as Australia, New Zealand, Canada, the US and South Africa, and is currently setting up corporate governance structures and building an online presence.  

Lennox says NACUE won’t focus specifically on one type of start-up, such as Web companies or ones based on science and technology, but will seek generally to encourage an entrepreneurial culture.

“Being enterprising is about having ideas and making them happen. It is the capacity of individuals, groups and organisations to respond to change, take risks, innovate and develop and execute new ideas and approaches,” she says.

She believes that universities can be inflexible in adding entrepreneurialism to their curriculum and extra-curricular enterprise societies are uniquely positioned to help students to gain these skills.   

For her part, Meyer believes the launch is well timed amid the financial crisis. “We don’t need the government to take care of everyone, what is needed is individual capitalism and entrepreneur-led economic growth.”   

Timely as it may be, but NACUE will have to succeed where at least two earlier attempts have sputtered. The National Association of Student Entrepreneur Clubs, a collection of 10 student groups formed in 2006, stalled when its founder David Hudson graduated.  

According to Lennox, an attempt was made by the US body Collegiate Entrepreneurs’ Organization to transplant its concept to the UK with no success.

Lennox says to succeed NACUE must clearly remain the voice of students, rather than moving too far towards a venture capital role, or acting as a top-down organisation directing students.

“To gain legitimacy, this has to be a grassroots, student-led effort that preserves our integrity as promoters of enterprise.”

“We want to increase the exposure of potential student entrepreneurs to people who can help them. Many people might not know they are entrepreneurial. It’s an entire culture we need to generate.”