Final year Executive MBA students taking Dr Nathaniel Massa’s Entrepreneurship and Innovation elective at the Faculty of Economics, Management and Accountancy, presented their business start-up concepts to a panel of seasoned professionals active in the entrepreneurship scene at a recent GEW 2020 pitching event.
Global Entrepreneurship Week (GEW) is hosted nationally by the Edward de Bono Institute at the same university.
This event was aligned with the MBA participants’ semester-long business start-up idea and feasibility analysis project which forms an integral part of their elective.
The international MBA cohort teams presented their business concepts ranging from convenience and lifestyle services, and tech-based business and security solutions, to health care concepts, and ‘sharing economy’ app-based ideas – to a panel of professionals involved in the start-up scene, hailing from areas associated with early-stage mentoring, foresight and creativity, knowledge management and IP, crowdfunding, and business consulting.
The MBA pitch review panel comprised: Dr Leonie Baldacchino (Director, Edward Debono Institute, UM); Dr Ing. Anton Bartolo (Director, Corporate Research & Knowledge Transfer, UM); Mr Etienne Borg Cardona (Founding Partner at Capital Advisory); Mr Matthew Caruana (Manager, ZAAR Crowdfunding, and Foundation for the Promotion of Entrepreneurial Initiatives (FPEI)); and joining directly from Slovenia, at the University of Primorska, Dr Jana Hojnik (Entrepreneurship scholar and lean start-up advocate).
The opportunity provided the cohort of practicing professionals on the Executive MBA programme with useful insight and an extent of stress-testing towards validating the feasibility and further pursuit of their business start-up ideas.
This year Virgin Group founder Richard Branson, a long-standing GEW supporter and participant, offered his personal message of hope, motivation and encouragement to all GEW2020 participants and entrepreneurs facing up to current COVID-19 challenges. Global Entrepreneurship Week saw circa ten million people in over 180 countries around the world involved in some 40,000 different events – stimulating and inspiring entrepreneurial activity. Sir Richard Branson’s video message can be seen online.
Dr Massa thanks all panel members for their involvement in this event, and commends the collaborative initiatives undertaken by the local GEW organisers. Upon eventual completion of their entrepreneurship elective, several of the Executive MBA participants will in due course, be possibly looking into the prospects of taking their idea further. In this regard, Dr Massa and the Faculty augur and wish the students well on their initiatives.
More about the Executive MBA Programme
Executive MBA programme Participants on the University of Malta’s FEMA Executive MBA programme are mostly professionals engaged in industry and various sectors, generally in management and executive positions. Their exposure and diverse experiential knowledge contributes to the applied learning environment fostered by FEMA on this part-time evening Masters programme. The programme is tailored for practicing professionals, managers, and others aspiring to higher positions of responsibility within their organisations – or those seeking a sound foundation and insight towards effectively running their own business in increasingly competitive environments.
For further enquiries on the Executive MBA programme at the Faculty of Economics, Management and Accountancy (FEMA) at the University of Malta, kindly contact Ms Vanessa Debattista. A programme overview may be found online.
