In September a number of the IOEE team travelled to Chelmsford to attend the tenth International Entrepreneurship Educators Conference (IEEC) at Anglia Ruskin University, which is itself an IOEE Centre of Excellence.

In these days of digital communications and constant online exchanges, it’s sometimes easy to forget the value of getting face-to-face with people who are as passionate about enterprise in education as we are. This event, which ran for three days from 8th September, was the opportunity to do exactly that and our team was inspired by the conference, which is known for its interactive, participatory approach.

The conference’s overriding theme was the creation of a new vision for enterprise education and all of the input gathered during the event, from educators, practitioners and policy-makers alike will be collated and combined in a shared 2020 Vision and Action Plan. Hannah Rowley, a key member of the IOEE’s communications team, said:

“The entire IEEC event was truly inspiring and invigorating! I particularly enjoyed Professor Sally Brown’s keynote speech – she was very engaging, as well as being informative. It was also excellent to see an IOEE Centre of Excellence hosting such an event – Anglia Ruskin did a fabulous job.”

Other keynote speakers included Yamini Naidu, a self described ‘economist turned storyteller’ who has led businesses around the globe to embrace and reap the benefits of fundamental organisational change, through the power of storytelling. Then there was Simon Bond, who, in addition to being Director of the University of Bath’s Innovation Centre, also takes the title of Innovation Director at SETsquared Partnership, an award-winning enterprise collaboration between the universities of Bath, Bristol, Exeter, Southampton and Surrey. In fact, the SFEDI’s very own Leigh Sears delivered a workshop on the great value of embedding entrepreneurs within universities, something he has experience of through the Centre for Enterprise Development and Research (CEDAR) at Anglia Ruskin itself.

During the conference, the IOEE team attended the National Enterprise Education Awards, a gala dinner event which took place in Hylands House, Chelmsford on the final evening. A full overview of winners is available here.