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UCL student heads to USA on entrepreneurial scholarship

24 January 2007

PhD student Adetokunbo Bamidele (UCL Electrical & Electronic Engineering) left for the USA this week for a six-month immersion in business culture state-side, courtesy of a scholarship from the National Council for Graduate Entrepreneurship (NCGE) and Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation, a leading US centre that works to advance entrepreneurship.

adetokunbo bamidele

Adetokunbo is one of only 16 individuals who have been selected from the best of England and Northern Ireland's engineering, scientific and technology undergraduate and postdoctorate students. The programme is designed to develop their high-impact business ideas during their stay in the USA, combining both practical and educational learning through coaching from leading scholars and thinkers, policy leaders, innovative researchers, and business founders.

The scholarship recipients will begin their programme with an introduction to the Kauffman Foundation, Kansas, where they will spend the first five weeks meeting and working with mentors and experts in the field of entrepreneurship. They will then visit universities including Harvard, before they take up a three-month internship at a business. They will then return to the Kauffman Foundation at the end of the six months to share and consolidate their experiences before returning to the UK.

Throughout their tenure, fellows will develop their individual business ideas, which in Adetokunbo's case is a new technique that will enable photographers to adjust and enhance the lighting in images online, an idea which won the 'Provost's Prize' for the best business planning at the 2006 Entrepreneur's Challenge, organised by UCL and the London Business School.

Adetokunbo said: "I am delighted to have been selected for the NCGE-Kauffman Fellows scheme and am incredibly excited about how the programme and time in the States will shape my business and develop my entrepreneurial skills. The US is renowned for its entrepreneurial activity and it will be an amazing experience to spend time at the Kauffman Foundation, a US university and business and apply what I learn to take my business idea forward. The programme will be challenging with a broad range of skills and knowledge to acquire but I can't wait to make the most of the opportunity and share the insights I will gain with my university and aspiring student and graduate entrepreneurs in the UK."

Image: Adetokunbo Bamidele