The Lester Center for Entrepreneurship hosted more than 60 educators from around the country for a three-day Lean LaunchPad Educators Program in August sponsored by the National Collegiate Inventors and Innovators Alliance.
Haas Lecturer Steve Blank and Lester Center Founding Executive Director Emeritus Jerry Engel taught the cutting-edge Lean LaunchPad approach to teaching entrepreneurship, which emphasizes experiential learning and immediate feedback to engage students with real-world entrepreneurship.
Unlike many approaches to entrepreneurship education, the Lean LaunchPad does not rely on case studies or fixed models; it challenges students to create their own business models based on information derived from personal engagement rather than secondhand market research. Students learn by proposing and immediately testing hypotheses. They "get out of the building" to talk to customers, partners, and competitors,
“Steve Blank is creating a revolution in how we teach entrepreneurship," says Lester Center Executive Director André Marquis. "And now Berkeley-Haas is helping other educators take this revolution around the world.”
Blank previously taught his Lean LaunchPad course to Berkeley-Columbia executive MBA and evening and weekend Berkeley MBA students and will teach it to full-time Berkeley MBA students this spring.