Encouraging, enabling & engaging in entrepreneurship
I ‘believe’ in the tradition of engaged scholarship. This is a participative process of research incorporating multiple key stakeholders. It connects theory and practice, academia and practitioners along the entire research journey. It values not only outcome, but also the process, which is full of passion, respect and meaning. Finally, it wishes to give back, to have a social impact and practical relevance, to matter to wider society. For this, I also try to encourage, enable and engage in entrepreneurship – to incubate entrepreneurial activities.
I act as a Non-Executive Director in various startups in education, finance and technology. I also mentored a regional winner of the Saïd Global Entrepreneurship Challenge, social entrepreneurs at the Initiatives of Change in Caux and the Fulbright Entrepreneurship Conference in Berlin. In 2014, I was a jury member for the social entrepreneurship awards “Go for Social!” and the “Hult Prize” in Oxford. In 2010, together with two colleagues I won the Exist-scholarship from the German Federal Ministry of Economics & Technology worth 100000 Euros, which we turned down due to other commitments.