Sarah Viala, former Transcontinental student, meets GEM students in Vancouver downtown

On Tuesday Feb 10^th, we had the pleasure to meet Sarah Viala who attended GEM Transcontinental program last year. She first came to Beijing in fall before arriving to Vancouver in spring to study entrepreneurship and sustainable innovation in a program jointly created last year by Grenoble Ecole de Management (France) and Simon Fraser University (Canada).

Peter McLachlan and Jia Chen, Mobify, Vancouver, talk to GEM & SFU students about entrepreneurship during Innovation Business Week

After warm welcoming by Jana  (member of the operation team) we started with a quick tour of the company building. Then we had great opportunity to listen to  Jia Chen, the product manager, who pitched about what it is to be an entrepreneur and about his personal experience. Finally, one of the three Mobify’s co-founders, Peter McLachlan, talked to us about the origin of the company, its development and strategy.

Warren Roy and Kelvin Ng, Global Relay, Vancouver, talk to GEM & SFU students about startups during Innovation Business Week

Second edition of the Business week in Vancouver kicked off by an excellent speech of Warren Roy, CEO of Global Relay. The Business week is organised for the students from Grenoble Ecole de Management who are participating in Entrepreneurship program run cojointly with Beedie Business School of SFU. Here are some of the most interesting ideas Mr. Roy outlined.

MOOCs: the (Loch Ness) Monster of Higher Education?

 “MOOCs are the monster under the bed!” boomed a Dean at an academic conference just over two years ago. “And soon, they are going to come out and get us all!” Two years on and the idea of revolutionary change in higher education seemed to have been mitigated somewhat. The 2014 EFMD Annual Conference in Vienna brought out a more moderated view suggesting that they would make a contribution to teaching and learning, but they would in not way replace the traditional university. Sense at last. If MOOCs are the monster, perhaps they, or at least their underlying business model, are more of the Loch Ness variety. Talked about by many, but very difficult to find.

EFMD Annual Conference 2014: Closing remarks

Rather than do a traditional closing speech, Barbara Sporn began her closing address by asking the audience the one key question from the conference: could they pronounce “WU” properly?! She then thanked the team members of WU for their dedication and effort in setting up the conference as well as Diana Grote and Eric Cornuel of EFMD. Ms. Sporn went on to outline the difficulty in summarizing such a rich conference, adding that EFMD conferences are like stock taking exercises that give time for reflection on issues in management education. 

Access all GlobalEd conference articles here.

EFMD Annual Conference 2014: Breakout sessions- A4 – Roundtable on New Technologies & Accreditation

At the Roundtable Martin Schader the Associate Director, Quality Services, EFMD, and Rebecca Taylor, Dean Open University UK, spoke during the breakout sessions on Roundtable on New Technologies & Accreditation. Discussing how MOOCs are now becoming more prevalent in education as well as how different technologies can be embedded in the learning experience.

 

Frank Chin, Elastic Path, Vancouver, talks to GEM & SFU students about the history of the company during Innovation Business Week

On February 12^th, 30 students from Grenoble Ecole de Management in the Transcontinental Vancouver Program visited Elastic Path with their fellow SFU classmates. You might wonder what this company does, so here is a brief summary of their past.