This 12-credit module forms an integral part of the structured learning in entrepeneurship at KTH. The program provides an opportunity for undergraduate students to immerse in Stockholm’s entrepreneurial environment by undergoing a 1-year internship at a technology-based company.
Students are required to prepare Internship Program Reports on a quarterly basis summarizing their 1-year experience in Stockholm, including lessons learned and specific skills and knowledge acquired.
Throughout the program period, students will keep a logbook to document their internship work experience, lessons learned and any new ideas and insights generated. This will help provide students with the relevant inputs to put together the quarterly Internship Program Reports.
Students are exposed to the realities of the challenges and problems faced by a technology-based start-up/company seeking to survive and grow amidst funds shortage, keen competition and an increasingly globalised environment. Rather than being confined to classrooms and laboratories on campus, students will have the opportunity to be exposed to real world business practices, and to apply what they have learned in classroom-based courses to their work, thereby preparing themselves for working life as an entrepreneur or as a professional working in an entrepreneurial organization. The main entrepreneurial skills and business knowledge they are expected to learn from the program (both from and outside the internship) include:
- Organization and management practices appropriate for a technology-based start-up/ enterprise.
- Key business functions including product development, marketing, selling, fund raising, intellectual property protection, customer care, investor relations, partnership development, media relations, financial and strategic planning.
- Key entrepreneurial leadership and management skills, including vision articulation, public communications, team building, strategic planning, interpersonal/human relationship, motivational and negotiation skills.
- Knowledge of industry structure, customer needs, technology commercialization processes, professional practices and standards, and market and competitive trends related to the business/industry that they intern in.
The module aims to (i) engage the students in continuous reflections on their learning experience (both at and outside of work) and in applying the entrepreneurship concepts and knowledge that they learned in the classroom to their real life internship work and assignments; and (ii) sharpen the students’ participant observation abilities by getting them to document in writing their observations and questions and how they are related to their classroom learning.