Professor Shai Vyakarnam
Shai is passionate about entrepreneurship education and development for over 30 years. He is presently Visiting Professor at the Bettany Centre for Entrepreneurship at Cranfield University, having had the honour of being its Director for four years. Previously, for fourteen years, he was founding director of Centre for Entrepreneurial Learning at the University of Cambridge. Shai’s current role entails growing entrepreneurship education, mentoring and inspiring new generations of entrepreneurs. Also supervises doctoral candidates.
Shai’s latest co-authored book is the Scale-Up Manual. It follows on the heels of Camels, Tigers and Unicorns: Rethinking science and technology enabled innovation. The Scale-Up Manual is designed to help teams navigate their way from early to mature stages of growth through understanding of the three chasms they will encounter on the journey as well as learn of the 12 vectors they can use to help overcome the challenges of the chasms. His last book with Neal Hartman, Unlocking the Enterpriser Inside. A book of why, what and How takes readers into the practicalities of how to create courses and learning in education FOR entrepreneurship.
Shai is also active in several stages of business development from start-ups through scale-ups and growing businesses as educator, mentor, and coach. Typically involved in strategy, boardroom dynamics, team building and assisting with getting teams ready to pitch to investors. His passion is for science and technology enabled businesses. As a result of these experiences he has been invited to provide policy advice and executive education for larger firms that want to embrace entrepreneurial thinking. He is on the advisory board of several early stage companies. Trustee of GEN Initiative providing education, income generation to small rural communities in India.
Shai is passionate about entrepreneurship education and development for over 30 years. He is presently Visiting Professor at the Bettany Centre for Entrepreneurship at Cranfield University, having had the honour of being its Director for four years. Previously, for fourteen years, he was founding director of Centre for Entrepreneurial Learning at the University of Cambridge. Shai’s current role entails growing entrepreneurship education, mentoring and inspiring new generations of entrepreneurs. Also supervises doctoral candidates.
Shai’s latest co-authored book is the Scale-Up Manual. It follows on the heels of Camels, Tigers and Unicorns: Rethinking science and technology enabled innovation. The Scale-Up Manual is designed to help teams navigate their way from early to mature stages of growth through understanding of the three chasms they will encounter on the journey as well as learn of the 12 vectors they can use to help overcome the challenges of the chasms. His last book with Neal Hartman, Unlocking the Enterpriser Inside. A book of why, what and How takes readers into the practicalities of how to create courses and learning in education FOR entrepreneurship.
Shai is also active in several stages of business development from start-ups through scale-ups and growing businesses as educator, mentor, and coach. Typically involved in strategy, boardroom dynamics, team building and assisting with getting teams ready to pitch to investors. His passion is for science and technology enabled businesses. As a result of these experiences he has been invited to provide policy advice and executive education for larger firms that want to embrace entrepreneurial thinking. He is on the advisory board of several early stage companies. Trustee of GEN Initiative providing education, income generation to small rural communities in India.
Liisa Van Vliet
Liisa is a scientist, an entrepreneur and mentor. She has a Ph.D in Biochemistry from St John’s College, University of Cambridge. After working for Accenture in project management, she returned to Cambridge as a post-doc in the field of Droplet Microfluidics, where she helped develop microfluidic droplet systems for drug discovery, diagnostics and personalised medicine. She was awarded a 2010 BBSRC Enterprise Fellow to spin out Drop-Tech Ltd, a microfluidic instrument development and consultancy company, which started selling its first product in partnership with Dolomite Microfluidics in July 2013. She was nominated as “Rising Star” and one of the BioBeat 50 Movers and Shakers in BioBusiness 2014, and has won several Business competitions. Liisa is passionate about bringing technology and Science to market for the benefit of all, particularly for healthcare and social applications. She has given Entrepreneurship workshops for several EU network consortia and since 2012 facilitates and mentors for programmes run by the Entrepreneurship Centre (Judge Business School, Cambridge). She continues to develop microfluidic droplet systems for drug discovery, personalized medicine and Alzheimer diagnostics at the University of Cambridge, and she runs Entrepreneurship workshops to address the UN sustainable development goals.
Liisa is a scientist, an entrepreneur and mentor. She has a Ph.D in Biochemistry from St John’s College, University of Cambridge. After working for Accenture in project management, she returned to Cambridge as a post-doc in the field of Droplet Microfluidics, where she helped develop microfluidic droplet systems for drug discovery, diagnostics and personalised medicine. She was awarded a 2010 BBSRC Enterprise Fellow to spin out Drop-Tech Ltd, a microfluidic instrument development and consultancy company, which started selling its first product in partnership with Dolomite Microfluidics in July 2013. She was nominated as “Rising Star” and one of the BioBeat 50 Movers and Shakers in BioBusiness 2014, and has won several Business competitions. Liisa is passionate about bringing technology and Science to market for the benefit of all, particularly for healthcare and social applications. She has given Entrepreneurship workshops for several EU network consortia and since 2012 facilitates and mentors for programmes run by the Entrepreneurship Centre (Judge Business School, Cambridge). She continues to develop microfluidic droplet systems for drug discovery, personalized medicine and Alzheimer diagnostics at the University of Cambridge, and she runs Entrepreneurship workshops to address the UN sustainable development goals.
Orsolya Ihasz
Orsi is a researcher, educator and advocate for social change and holds a position as Enterprise Technology Lead for Cranfield University. She is a member of the Centre for Science and Policy, Cambridge Grand Challenges Initiative and actively involved in the work of the Institute for Sustainability Leadership at Cambridge to support entrepreneurial ventures geared towards finding solutions to the UN sustainable development goals. Prior to her research, she spent 12 years’ in entrepreneurship education at the University of Cambridge Judge Business School helping researchers reconnect with purpose and practice through their academic work and co-funded Cambridge Inner Game Leadership. She has also worked as a policy advocate with Department for International Development, the EU DG Youth, and the UN to promote youth-participation within policy.
Orsi is passionate about making the world a kinder, more educated, equal place for all. She believes that access to healthcare and knowledge is a basic human right and (responsible) innovation is a great vehicle to support this call. Her current research contributes towards understanding the role of social systems in the diffusion of innovation in low resource markets including the world’s poorest 3 billion. This work focuses on the WHO’s Be He@lthy, Be Mobile digital health initiative – the first UN initiative to use population-wide mHealth prevention services at scale and is the largest scaled mHealth initiative for noncommunicable diseases (NCDs) in the world to date.
Orsi is a researcher, educator and advocate for social change and holds a position as Enterprise Technology Lead for Cranfield University. She is a member of the Centre for Science and Policy, Cambridge Grand Challenges Initiative and actively involved in the work of the Institute for Sustainability Leadership at Cambridge to support entrepreneurial ventures geared towards finding solutions to the UN sustainable development goals. Prior to her research, she spent 12 years’ in entrepreneurship education at the University of Cambridge Judge Business School helping researchers reconnect with purpose and practice through their academic work and co-funded Cambridge Inner Game Leadership. She has also worked as a policy advocate with Department for International Development, the EU DG Youth, and the UN to promote youth-participation within policy.
Orsi is passionate about making the world a kinder, more educated, equal place for all. She believes that access to healthcare and knowledge is a basic human right and (responsible) innovation is a great vehicle to support this call. Her current research contributes towards understanding the role of social systems in the diffusion of innovation in low resource markets including the world’s poorest 3 billion. This work focuses on the WHO’s Be He@lthy, Be Mobile digital health initiative – the first UN initiative to use population-wide mHealth prevention services at scale and is the largest scaled mHealth initiative for noncommunicable diseases (NCDs) in the world to date.