The course has been designed in conjunction with NEN's Indian faculty advisors including: Prof. Rakesh Basant - IIM Ahmedabad, Prof. Suresh Rao - SP Jain (Mumbai), Prof. RK Lagu, IIT Bombay, Prof. Arya Kumar, BITS Pilani and Dr. Gayatri Saberwal, IBAB (Bangalore).

As a critical component of the course, NEN and STVP are conducting a three-day workshop 'Introduction to Concepts, Skills and Pedagogy' in Mumbai from June 21 to 23, for faculty from over 40 major academic institutes across India. "The workshop is an extremely valuable program to help NEN faculty become facile with entrepreneurship teaching. Additionally, it is also an unique opportunity for the faculty to be introduced to world class techniques and tools that they can employ in their own teaching, providing them with a thorough grounding in entrepreneurship education", said Laura S. Parkin, Executive Director, National Entrepreneurship Network.

Leading the workshop will be the STVP Executive Director Dr. Tina Seelig and Dr. Edward Rubesch, Lecturer, Thammasat Business School, Thailand. The course has been designed to consist of a series of progressive workshops and activities that will be aimed at supporting faculty as they go through the process of ramping up entrepreneurship programs on their campuses, fulfilling NEN's objective of turning thousands of entrepreneurs.

STVP's Executive Director, Tina Seelig who brings valuable and unique experience in teaching entrepreneurship and innovation at Stanford, and a cultural perspective from Stanford and Silicon Valley, points out, "This is the first time STVP with its rich experience in entrepreneurship education has collaborated in India - tailoring a program suited specifically for the needs of Indian faculty. NEN's quality work in India - laying the foundation for entrepreneurship education across campuses, has been the principal basis for this collaboration. The affiliation will help bring in global best practices to India, with content and an approach that maximizes effectiveness in entrepreneurship education.

Speaking on NEN's collaboration with STVP, Dr. Romesh Wadhwani, Chairman, Wadhwani Foundation said, "Over the past three years, NEN has been helping institutes rapidly build comprehensive, high impact programs in entrepreneurship education with the aim of developing the next generation entrepreneurs for India".

"We have been extremely impressed by the response of our Directors, Principals and faculty who have shown great initiative and desire to provide their students with the skills they need to be successful today, thus highlighting the need for faculty development. NEN's collaboration with STVP is a significant step in that direction. STVP is clearly the global leader in entrepreneurship education and has built a powerful global network of entrepreneurship educators, which makes this a very valuable collaboration for India".

"Entrepreneurship is a relatively new area for us, and it is important to be acquainted with international best practices to be able to offer our students the highest standard of entrepreneurship education possible. The NEN-STVP workshop would expose the entrepreneurship faculty with the practical and the do-able aspects of teaching entrepreneurship suited specifically for the needs of Indian faculty," states Dr. Gayatri Saberwal, Chief Coordinator and NEN Faculty Leader at the Institute of Bioinformatics & Applied Biotechnology, Bangalore.

Earlier this year, NEN conducted 'blueprint workshops' for faculty across all NEN member institutes to create interest and awareness about teaching entrepreneurship, as the first in the series of workshops constituting the Educators Course.

NEN, a non-profit program of the Wadhwani Foundation, was co-founded in 2003 by leading Indian institutes, including IIT-Bombay, IIM-Ahmedabad and BITS Pilani, SP Jain Institute-Bombay and IBAB, Bangalore. NEN works to inspire, educate and support the development of new and future entrepreneurs by helping top tier academic institutes to rapidly build world-class, comprehensive entrepreneurship programs on their campuses. NEN provides a wide range of support to institutes, including individual consulting; faculty development programs; and access to speakers and mentors, courseware and other teaching material, and a nationwide network of peers. Over the past three years, NEN has become the leading catalyst of entrepreneurship education on campuses in India. To ensure that NEN's members have access to global best practices, NEN has formed collaborations with Stanford's STVP program, TiE Global and others. NEN's Advisory Board comprises leading international and Indian entrepreneurs and investors. From India and abroad, including Kiran Mazumdar Shaw - Biocon; Naina Lal Kidwai - HSBC; Harsh Mariwalla - Marico; Sunil Mittal - Bharthi; Arun Seth - British Telecom; Prof Howard Sevenson - Harvard Business School; Randy Komisar - Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers and Romesh Wadhwani himself. Currently NEN works with over 45 top-tier institutes in India.

STVP (http://stvp.stanford.edu) is dedicated to accelerating high-technology entrepreneurship research and education for engineers and scientists not just at Stanford, but also worldwide. Its affiliation with NEN is but one of many outreach efforts fast-establishing STVP as the global glue for a network of educators, students and business people focused on entrepreneurship.