Gründerskolen Alumni Information

Gründerskolen Alumni - or GSA - is the alumni organization of The Norwegian Entrepreneurship Programme. The award winning Norwegian Entrepreneurship Programme (Gründerskolen) is a Norwegian academic cooperation programme involving all the universities and several university colleges in Norway. The Centre for Entrepreneurship at the University of Oslo has the overall academic and administrative responsibility for the programme. The Norwegian Entrepreneurship program was founded in 1999 by professor Nils D. Christophersen at the department of Informatics. The program started up in cooperation with Cornell University and the first year 6 IT students participated in the programme in San Francisco. Since then the project has had a rapid growth and in 2008 we had 297 applicants wherof 142 students was given the offer. Our almuni network has more than 800 alumnis and is by far the biggest network in its kind in Norway. In 2007 the programme recieved first price for ’Best quality in higher education’ by the Norwegian Minsitry of education and research and in 2006 a price for ”best learning environment” at the University of Oslo. Structure of the Programme The students participating in the Gründerskolen programme are educated to at least Bachelor’s Degree level, and there is a stringent selection process in Norway. Gründerskolen is open to students from all academic disciplines, but the programme focuses on high-tech start-ups, and many of the work placements are with companies in the IT, biotech or other technology sectors. However, as the intention is specifically to learn about companies in a start-up situation, it is not necessary that the students have a technical background.