The symposium was divided into three days of theoretical-practical activities, in which participants were able to share experiences, work collaboratively, and learn new techniques to teach entrepreneurship.
Wednesday, June 16th, marked the final day of the Babson SEE Chile program, which is an Entrepreneurship Symposium organized by Babson College -a leading university in the area of entrepreneurship- in collaboration with the Luksic Scholars Foundation. The program aims to provide academics at Chilean universities with new teaching techniques related to entrepreneurship.
This year’s symposium took place in Santiago for a three-day period. More than 40 professors and academics were present and they represented over 24 universities and academic institutions found throughout Chile, such as the universities of Antofagasta, Concepción, Valparaíso, and Adolfo Ibáñez. These professors participated in classes, workshops, and seminars given by two experts in innovation and entrepreneurship: Andrew Corbett, Director of the Butle Institute for Free Enterprise through Entrepreneurship at Babson College, and Matt Allen, academic from the Entrepreneurship division of the same faculty.
Since the program’s first version, held in 2011, Babson SEE Chile has had more than 462 participants and has been held in other cities throughout Chile, such as Temuco, Concepción, Viña del Mar, and La Serena. An online version was held in 2021. After this year’s session, the program will have 504 participants in total.
Workshops and seminars
The symposium took place over three days and had a mixture of theoretical and practical activities, throughout which the following themes were discussed: the flexibility of the entrepreneurship model, the importance of the techniques used to teach entrepreneurship, the perception that Chileans have regarding this matter, as well as the search for innovative solutions to solve problems that affect the country.
“In general, Chile looks pretty good in the area of entrepreneurship. It’s not something that happens transiently, but rather Chile consistently looks very strong in this area,” said Matt Allen.
Divided into seven groups, the participants were able to exchange knowledge, strengthen their skills to work collaboratively, and analyze the challenges facing the area of education after two years of the COVID-19 pandemic in which they had to adapt their teaching techniques.
Gabrielle Trasatti, Community Coordinator for the Luksic Scholars Foundation, stated that “both the professors and participants really valued that this year’s symposium was able to be held in-person. They were able to actively participate, share their academic experiences, and make the most of networking with other academics, which is one of the main goals of the program: to develop a powerful network of educators who can then apply innovation and entrepreneurship in their classes or projects.”
The event ended on Wednesday, June 16th, with a certificate ceremony.