The Kitchen: New name for future AU incubator
The working group for entrepreneurship has come up with a number of proposals and principles for the future AU incubator for entrepreneurship and what it is to offer. The working group has now completed its work, and the Business Committee (the Senior Management Team) has made the final decision on the name of the new incubator – The Kitchen.
During the work to strengthen the entrepreneurial initiative, the working title was ‘the Entrepreneur Factory’, but now the final name of the incubator has been decided. The name, ‘The Kitchen’, was inspired by the building that is to accommodate it - the former central kitchen of what used to be the municipal hospital.
The vision with the entrepreneurial initiative is to increase AU’s impact on society by strengthening its entrepreneurship. The initiative includes establishing a unifying and attractive environment for AU’s entrepreneurs - both researchers and students.
Principles for entrepreneurship at AU
The goal of The Kitchen is to create an environment which makes it easy to collaborate across faculties and with the surrounding ecosystem, and in which entrepreneurs have access to professional advice on how best to develop their companies.
The framework for this entrepreneurial environment has just been finalised. The working group for entrepreneurship, headed by professor Michael Dahl, has submitted its final proposal and catalogue of ideas, which have been developed in collaboration with the external advisory group chaired by the vice-dean of ST, Kurt Nielsen.
The proposal includes a number of principles for entrepreneurship at AU, which have been approved by the Business Committee.
The Kitchen will open in 2020
The next step will be to look at the catalogue of ideas and select which initiatives to prioritise. The Business Committee is grateful for the all the work the two groups have done. Representatives from the groups will be involved in the development process on an ad hoc basis going forward.
A business networking meeting will be held in the end of October where employees will have the opportunity to provide input for the development of The Kitchen.
The renovation of the building is expected to be completed before the new year, and the incubator should be ready to open in the beginning of 2020, when the new business director is also expected to start.
Facts:
With this entrepreneurship initiative, the university wants to open new career paths for especially junior researchers and students and get them to contribute to creating new companies and generating innovation in existing companies to a greater extent. In addition, the goal is for a greater part of the university’s research to be converted into business and thus become more directly beneficial to society.