Last night more than 100 people attended the first meet-up of the Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) at ALBA Graduate Business School at The American College of Greece.
The amphitheater of ALBA was full to overflowing with an enthusiastic audience of students and professionals who gathered to participate in an international entrepreneurship course taking place at ALBA from April 28 through June 9.
The course titled “Beyond Silicon Valley: Entrepreneurship in Transitioning Economies” – developed by Prof. Michael Goldberg of Case Western Reserve University – is offered through the Massive Online Open Courses (MOOCs) on the Coursera platform and is free of charge and open to everyone. Thanks to the initiative undertaken by ALBA Graduate Business School at the American College of Greece in cooperation with the U.S. Embassy in Athens and business incubator Metavallon, it’s the first time a Massive Online Open Course is enhanced with content designed specifically for the Greek audience. Thus, all participants are offered the unique opportunity to receive practical advice from entrepreneurs of different countries on how to start a business and identify funding sources in a tough economic environment.
Last night’s meet-up was highly attended as expected, since 3,250 people from Greece have already registered for the course, out of 15,000 participants. Rebecca Pitsika, CEO of People for Business Human Resources consulting firm and Alexandros Trimis, co-founder of Dopios digital platform were the key speakers to discuss the challenges of entrepreneurship in a competitive business market. The audience kept bombarding the speakers with questions about funding, choosing the ideal partners, the risk of failure, copyright issues and, last but not least, the bureaucratic barriers a start-up has to overcome. Mr. Trimis and Ms. Pitsika both agreed though that bureaucracy is the least important issue upon creating a successful start-up.
The first meet-up was just indicative of the course’s success! Live meet-ups will follow all over Greece to offer participants an opportunity to discuss innovative topics, share ideas and find out how to make a winning business plan. Although the course has started, registration is still open!
The meet-up was widely covered by the press. To view the Kathimerini newspaper article, please visit here:
http://www.kathimerini.gr/765072/article/epikairothta/ellada/ellhniko-epixeirein-se-die8nes-ma8hma