The IMIB Network is a project supporting international students and SIMHE customers path into employment through various implementations. The task for Laurea’s team is to develop comprehensive entrepreneurship coaching where participants increase their understanding of own competences, develop peer and professional networks, and learn about entrepreneurship in Finland.

While the Laurea team prepared the workshops for the autumn period, the planned marketing took place and potential participant enrollment seemed promising. Nevertheless, in the end, actual participants coming to the workshops was a very small number. Despite that, the Laurea team and the invited expert entrepreneurs provided an excellent series of workshops for which they received positive feedback. The next step was to think how to increase not just the number of enrolled international students, but to encourage them to participate actively in the workshops.

To increase participant recruitment for the second workshop delivery, the team went through the various channels of communication, ranging from social media, international student intranet, staff intranet, international student affairs office, and lecturers working with international students. However, we wanted to find additional ways to reach out to students.

In one way, the abovementioned challenge was addressed by a member of the Laurea team who discovered that the Laurea library offers an opportunity to liaise with projects and showcasing them openly on campus. Collaboration was agreed and planned between the project team and the library showcasing the entrepreneurship coaching for two weeks. As pictures 1, 2, and 3 illustrate, the library provides a variety of tools that support not only awareness about a project, but also an interactive platform by which students can explore some of the topics. For example, Image 1 shows that before visitors enter the library, they were invited to think about a relevant topic to the project, which in this case regards entrepreneurship. Could you be an entrepreneur? is a simple question inviting to reflexivity, which is the perspective of the entrepreneurship workshops. The interactive part consisted of students writing down answers on a A0 paper. The project flyer was also available to them.

Inside the library, visitors could find out more information about the overall project. This was done by a presentation available on a screen, and a selection of books that offered further information on entrepreneurship (see Image 2). The last interactive component (see Image 3) was a tree where visitors could add Post-its used for answering the following question: What kind of skills are needed in entrepreneurship? And, once more, this question invited them to think about competences or ideas about competences required by the trade. All of this was arranged in the Tikkurila campus, and in hindsight, coordination with the library at the Leppävaara campus, could increase the outreach to students. All in all, the influence of the library project showcase may have put a seed in students’ minds to think about entrepreneurship.

The entrepreneurship workshops continue 5.3, 19.2 & 2.4 at Laurea’s Tikkurila campus, from 15:30hrs to 18:00hrs. For more information contact the author.

The IMIB Network is a 3AMK project (ESF+, 1.1.2024 – 31.5.2026). Haaga-Helia is the project coordinator, and Metropolia UAS and Laurea UAS are partners. Each team has its own work package namely: career coaching (HH), the business mentoring model (Metropolia), and entrepreneurship coaching (Laurea).