ATTENTION! This course takes place as a blockseminar prior the official start of the lectures.
Please check our webpage for updates!: https://sust.ris.uni-due.de.
Please read the following information carefully, so you know what to expect, especially regarding registration and agenda.
This course is all about you and your ideas, purposeful doings, sustainability and teamwork.
In Entrepreneurship with Purpose, students learn about the characteristics of entrepreneurial ventures that are driven by a dual mission: a strong social, societal and/or ecological purpose alongside economic goals. They learn about, discuss, and reflect upon social and economic purpose during ideation, team building and business modelling. They get acquainted with ideas, tools, processes and methods from various "practices" in business and organisations, like Theory U, New Work and Design.
You are invited to reflect upon and critically explore if and how social/ecological and economic purpose can be potentially aligned in entrepreneurial ventures. Individually and in teamwork, you reflect upon how personal values can drive the various blocks of a venture creation process. You experiment in teams to deal with potentially conflicting values and interests to jointly find out how to align them in a collectively created idea.
In the course, the concept of regeneration, the process Theory U and contemplation and expression through arts are used to explore how an entrepreneurial mindset can foster action towards sustainable activities.
The idea of regeneration is to nurture and restore natural ecosystem. In the course, we ask how you can apply entrepreneurship to integrate nature, its value and its limited capacities into you team’s venture and, generally, intobusiness activities.
Theory U is a process and method developed and applied by the Presencing Institute (Otto Scharmer, Katrin Kaeufer & team). Its methods and tools are used in the course to explore individual values and mindsets. It frames the teamwork. It is used as an approach for reflection, co-creation and as one potential perspective on necessary societal transformations.
In contemplations on arts and as form of expression, you deal with arts both in theory and in practice. You wilil look at art for inspiration and to engage with its critical power. You will make art to express, reflect and, yet again, look. Through arts, we engage with different aspects of entrepreneurship, like the consideration of stakeholders, prototyping, and the integration of nature in business activities.
You’ll learn about
- 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) of the United Nations
- Earth’s systems and planetary boundaries
- Regenerative or hybrid organizations
- Theory U as process and method
- Purpose for the individual and the enterprise
- Values in the individual, a team and for a business
- Organization, roles and functions in a team
- (Digital) tools for organization, idea development and project execution
- Business Model Canvas for understanding and building business ideas
- Business Model Canvas and Sustainability
- Idea development, design thinking tools and thinking
The teaching style is a mixture of input and teamwork alternating with self-studying individually and in teams.
Agenda:
The course will take place as a blockseminar in october across the course of 1 week, 09:30 - 16:30 at Place Beyond Bytes in Duisburg- Ruhrort, from Monday, 06.10. - Friday, 10.10. Additionally, two sessions will take place during lecture-time, Wednesday, 15.10. and Wednesday, 22.10. likely from 14-16 o'clock. The last two sessions will take place at Campus Essen.
You are expected to attend all sessions.
The course takes place in person. It is expected that all students can attend at all given dates - please make sure you can attend when you schedule jobs, holidays and the like. We tried to make sure it doesn't cross your exam times.
Students are expected to take an online course on Business Modelling in a phase of self-studying beforehand. Access to the course will be shared after registration. You will also be asked to fill out a survey at the beginning and at the end of the course to see your own progress concerning entrepreneurship and sustainability. This is a great learning insight for you.
Registration
You can register until 3.09.2025, 23:59h. For this, please write an email to annemarie.bloch@icb.uni-due.de with the following information:
- Full name
- Study programme
- Matriculation number
- Number of semesters
- Email address
- Short indication if you have heard about the course prior
If you want to register for the course but the deadline has passed, please write an email. We'll be creating a waiting list. However, be aware that you are still expected to take the online course prior the actual seminar.
Examination / Methods of Assessment:
Portfolio: a) Frequent presentation of results (throughout). b) Final presentation of results in last session (22.10.2025) c) written report (approx. 10 pages, deadline 09.11.2025, 23:59h)
See here for where Place Beyond Bytes is located at:
Franz-Haniel-Platz 1
47119 Duisburg
https://goo.gl/maps/kimZLwGuXiSTpoN79
About
This course is part of a collaboration with
Freie Universität Berlin / Digital Entrepreneurship Hub,
Stiftung Entrepreneurship (Berlin) and
the Presencing Institute (located at MIT, USA).
Check out our very first course at FU Berlin on Instagram in summer 2023: @entrepreneurship.with.purpose .
Last year, it came to UDE, as part of our chair and Place Beyond Bytes, your co-creation lab in Duisburg.
This course allows you to collect credits for the Sustainable Education Certificate (BNE) at University of Essen-Duisburg.
Important Notes:
For a successful completion of the course, active and regular participation is needed. Active participation contains continuous work on ideas developed throughout the course in the teams and regular participation in activities during presence time in the sessions. This concerns specifically tools and methods used for ideation processes as well as concerning applications of Theory U. Regular pitches of the current state of work are part of the course, too.
While this may all sound a lot - the most important thing is that you have time in this course to pursue your own ideas, discover yourself and what is important to you and how you can create purposeful ventures through this. And throughout all this, we won't forget to have fun :)
Please consult our webpage "Teaching" for updates: https://sust.ris.uni-due.de
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