EM Normandie 21 / 06 / 2021
2014: InsIDE is born
You know about the chicken and egg scenario, don’t you? The famous question as to which came first? If we applied this debate to EM Normandie Business School to explain how entrepreneurship came about within the School, the chronology would be much more straightforward. It’s quite simple: entrepreneurship has been in our bones since forever, and, for just as long, we have worked hard to pass it on to our students. You can therefore imagine how proud we were when, in 2009, a group of pupils set up ACCES, an association to provide coaching to business start-ups, which influenced the national “Cordées de l’Entrepreneuriat” programme, several years later.
Obviously, this momentum sparked new ambition; we help to organise a number of startup weekends- where budding entrepreneurs have 54 hours to set up a business- and, in particular, envisage a new scheme. We think it through, we refine it, and finally, in 2014, we present it: the Institute for Innovation and Development of Entrepreneurship, InsIDE for those in the know.
The programme seeks to encourage entrepreneurship, train people from all backgrounds and support students from the idea phase right through to creating their business. The concept is an instant success. It becomes increasingly popular among learners, to the point where the student incubator ends up playing a huge role in the EM Normandie Experience. We teach them how to pitch their projects, put them on support programmes and help them to set up a business. We even go as far as identifying Business Angels to maximise the chances of bringing their ideas to life! And the scheme’s success does not end there; professionals are also full of praise for the expertise of InsIDE, which introduces more and more short and tailored training courses to meet all of their needs. What’s more, this key fixture, now firmly established in the entrepreneurial ecosystem, works with many regional stakeholders to help a growing number of budding entrepreneurs to take the plunge, to follow their dreams.
