Title: Launching students into enterprise: experiences with technology as a launching platform

Authors: Annemarie Ridder, Peter Van Der Sijde

Addresses: Nikos (Dutch Institute for Knowledge Intensive Entrepreneurship), University of Twente, Postbus 217, 7500 AE Enschede, The Netherlands. ' Nikos (Dutch Institute for Knowledge Intensive Entrepreneurship), University of Twente, Postbus 217, 7500 AE Enschede, The Netherlands

Abstract: The central issue in this contribution is how knowledge-intensive entrepreneurship can be stimulated when the driver is purely a technology push. The context of this study is the period December 1999 – December 2000 when the |new economy| was at its peak. At that time an innovation was ready to be launched in The Netherlands: Wireless Application Protocol (WAP), enabling the use of internet on a mobile phone. It was decided to make use of the momentum and stimulate entrepreneurship among the student community of the University of Twente. We will position this activity in the |mobile| value chain and in the value chain for technology transfer. We describe the WAP launching platform, its actors and activities and give a short characterisation of the five companies that were launched through this activity.

Keywords: entrepreneurship stimulation; regional cooperation; student enterprises; knowledge-intensive entrepreneurship; knowledge management; KM; value chain; technology transfer; WAP; The Netherlands; wireless application protocol; new ventures; internet; mobile phones; mobile communications; technology start-ups.

DOI: 10.1504/IJKMS.2006.008849

International Journal of Knowledge Management Studies, 2006 Vol.1 No.1/2, pp.121 - 132

Published online: 31 Jan 2006 *

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