Kent Business School continued its work building international relationships and sharing best practice in entrepreneurial learning with a successful four days of virtual workshops with universities in Azerbaijan.
Focussing on developing entrepreneurship in the creative industries in Azerbaijan, the workshops, funded by the British Council, brought together KBS academics with staff and students from ADA and ASUCA universities as well as creative practitioners from both countries.
At an event marking the launch of the workshops programme, the audience heard from Summer Xia, Azerbaijan Country Director, Regional Director of Higher Education Programmes, British Council and Ramil Abbakirov, Head of International Projects and Innovations, Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Azerbaijan.
Both underlined the importance of the development of creative industries to Azerbaijan and the vital role universities have in creating entrepreneurially minded graduates.
Over the four days, KBS academics – Sue Tarrant, Prof George Saradakis, Dr Gloria Appiah and Dr Zita Stone – contributed to the development of Azerbaijan’s entrepreneurship education with presentations covering best practice within KBS, giving an overview of the UK model of entrepreneurship education and its value creation in the economy and the role of education in preparing students for self-employment.
The international project was coordinated through KBS’s ASPIRE which has offered guidance and support to both universities in developing their entrepreneurship education.
ASPIRE Project Officer, Rebecca Smith, led workshop with Azerbaijani students on pitching skills as well as joining the judging panel for a pitching competition.
The workshops were part of a second year of relationship building between Azerbaijan and KBS funded by the British Council.
The Creative Spark: Higher Education Enterprise Programme is a five-year initiative which aims to support the international university and institutional partnerships to develop enterprise skills and a creative economy across seven countries in Central Asia (Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, and Kyrgyzstan), South Caucasus (Azerbaijan, Armenia, Georgia) and Ukraine through UK support.
If you want more information on how to get involved with the Business Start-Up Journey please contact the ASPIRE team.