Ideas for entrepreneurial ventures need a combination of elements in order to take form, and The University of Cambridge’s Judge Business School’s Accelerate Cambridge program allows MBAs a forum in which these elements can synthesize.
Accelerate Cambridge provides students with three-month programs involving mentorship, coaching and training, as well as shared workspaces. Two recent MBA graduates from Judge recently shared their stories of how their ventures took off with the help of the program.
Tom Miller, (MBA, ‘13) came upon Accelerate Cambridge with doubts that it was the right path, thinking that he would move immediately from his graduate work into the corporate world. But he soon found that the program answered his deeper mission.
Miller co-founded Cambridge Energy Partners, a startup which is developing a model that will provide developing countries with affordable, sustainable energy access. “The program gave us great opportunities for mentoring and a space to work from,” he said. “We began to gain momentum after we joined the Accelerate Cambridge program, because they helped us start to think like entrepreneurs – especially how to frame our offering to potential investors.”
Tessema Tesfachew, another 2013 Cambridge Judge MBA, was unaware of the accelerator program when he began his studies. He and two classmates encountered the program during the formation of their startup, Assembly Networking, which creates mobile apps for university alumni groups.
He recalls, “We wouldn’t have made progress so quickly without [it] … Accelerate Cambridge supported us through [development] and now we’re in the process of signing customers. I’ve learned so much so fast and I wouldn’t be doing anything else!”