Business ideas come to life in Arcada's entrepreneurship programme

The Arcada Entrepreneurship Hub supports students on several levels in their journey towards their own business. Over eight weeks, they receive concrete tools and guidance from Arcada's own experts, alumni and guest lecturers in a unique environment created to support entrepreneurial ambitions.

“We focus on teaching an entrepreneurial mindset that covers all aspects of building your own business. I want to challenge the students to look at their ideas from multiple angles to find the best concept,” says Fredrik Sirén, entrepreneurship coach at Arcada.

Arcada Entrepreneurship Hub has been developed in cooperation with the City of Helsinki. Through the campus incubator programme, the city Helsinki aims to create new companies with growth potential together with the higher education institutions. In addition, the participating institutions form a valuable network.

“The strength of Arcada lies in that we are a multidisciplinary UAS operating on one campus. All students, regardless of degree programme or language, are welcome to participate. This creates great potential for new innovations,” says Sirén.

First round almost finished

In October, the programme began with Swedish- and English-speaking bachelor and master students from different degree programmes at Arcada.

“We have previously participated in a course on entrepreneurship at Arcada, which opened our eyes to entrepreneurship. Through this programme, we have the opportunity to concretely work on our idea and develop it into a real business," says Jonas Irjala, who is studying information technology and developing a business idea together with his brother.

Franz and Jonas Irjala work on a business idea together.

The brothers want to bring an emergency supply kit, a collection of supplies that prepares households for various crisis situations, to the market.

- The problem we identified was that people know that they should have some preparedness at home, but they don't want to put the time and energy into fixing it. Our company will provide everything quickly and easily through a single click. In five years' time, we will be the go-to in Finland for this product,' says Franz Irjala, who is studying mechanical and sustainable engineering.

The entrepreneurship programme has helped them refine their idea and given them a new perspective on how it needs to be developed to succeed in a real market situation.

- Meeting people with different backgrounds in entrepreneurship and hearing their thoughts has been a great learning experience. The supportive and optimistic team spirit within the programme has also contributed to taking the business ideas to the next level," Franz and Jonas Irjala conclude.

Arcada would like to thank the Helsingestiftelsen for supporting the Arcada Entrepreneurship Hub learning environment through a donation to the fundraising campaign Arcada 25.