Stanford Graduate School of Business launches free Stanford Rebuild course for Entrepreneurs
Participants receive free access to Stanford’s online entrepreneurial program and toolkit to guide them through the process of creating and evaluating projects designed to accelerate recovery
Driven by its commitment to helping leaders become agents of change, Stanford Graduate School of Business (GSB) today announced Stanford Rebuild, a global innovation sprint focused on ideating and accelerating solutions for the wide range of challenges and opportunities that we will face as we emerge from the worst of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Stanford Rebuild is open to students, entrepreneurs, innovators, and business leaders around the globe, who are invited to participate in a 8-week focused investigation of ideas and solutions to accelerate the path to a better post-COVID future. The program, organised by the GSB’s Centre for Entrepreneurial Studies (CES) and Executive Education program—in partnership with schools and groups across Stanford University and beyond—is based on the Stanford Embark curriculum, an interactive entrepreneurial toolkit designed to help people explore if they can turn their idea into a viable business. Stanford is providing the Embark platform and toolkit to Stanford Rebuild participants at no cost as part of the innovation sprint.
With the deep impact of COVID-19 on many sectors, and the widely-held belief that the impact will extend for years to come, innovation will be crucial in accelerating recovery and contributing to a better outcome for individuals and organisations. Recognising that uncertain times can spawn great companies, Stanford Rebuild was structured to help individuals and teams evaluate opportunities to create the next generation of businesses that rebuild our economy as well as create solutions to address the “new normal” for individuals, small businesses, large organisations, and governments.
The initiative is part of Stanford University’s recent acceleration of the virtual learning experience as it explores new ways to pursue knowledge through openness, sharing, collaboration and communication. The university has a rich legacy as an early pioneer in remote and online programs, and has continued to emphasise teaching and learning regardless of platform. As the COVID-19 crisis quickly forced classes online to limit the spread of the disease, faculty have identified new and innovative ways to engage students and enrich the learning environment. This university-wide effort exemplifies the Stanford community’s culture of collaboration and spirit of innovation that allows for fast translation of discoveries into proven solutions.
“Stanford Rebuild is designed to address the critical need for rapid innovation and creativity at this uniquely challenging time,” said Stefanos Zenios, the co-director of Stanford GSB’s Centre for Entrepreneurial Studies, and the Investment Group of Santa Barbara Professor of Entrepreneurship and Professor of Operations, Information & Technology. “Periods of disruption bring to light new problems and challenges that innovators can help address. And, they can also be a source of new opportunities as customer needs and pain points change.”
“Our objective is to have many teams from around the world step up to look at both the challenges global communities will face in recovering from the pandemic, and the new opportunities that will certainly arise. By offering content, tools and expertise at no cost to aspiring innovators, we hope to inspire the next generation of services and organisations that help change lives in this new reality,” said Zenios.
Stanford Rebuild highlights challenges and opportunities related to COVID-19 recovery within four key categories—Reimagine Organisations, Reinforce Healthcare Systems, Revitalise the Workplace, and Redesign Human Wellbeing—tackling a wide range of challenges such as implementing scalable and socially-responsible testing and contact tracing, redesigning childcare and early education, addressing the mental health impact of social distancing, or supporting small businesses as they recover and reinvent themselves. Participants are welcome to bring forward any project ideas beyond these four categories as it long as it relates to the COVID-19 crisis.
Stanford Rebuild kicks off June 22 with a series of online events designed to inspire creative problem solving and get participants excited to drive innovation. The kick-off will be followed by an 8-week period where individuals and teams will develop, test, and refine their solutions using the Embark entrepreneurial toolkit. The sprint will conclude with a global online event to highlight a range of projects that show promise to meaningfully accelerate economic, societal and individual recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic.
It was more of a gut feeling that led us to the intersection of digitalisation, mobiles and the democratisation of payments. Paynetics felt strongly about making moving and managing money right for everyone and started building a platform that covers it all.
I’m Simon Goodman and I started out in PR, where I was introduced to the noble Choc Ice working on the Cadburys account. At the time they were looking to upgrade the humble choc ice.
In 2017, Matt launched Borrow A Boat, aka the ‘Airbnb’ of boats, making waves in the charter industry by offering a modern marketplace solution with the aim of making boating more accessible, affordable, flexible and inclusive for all.
Founded in 2021 by Alisa Patotsakaya, Immersive Fox is a text-to-video generation startup that specialises in providing businesses with AI-generated videos for sales and customer communication.
Samantha Gilchrist, co-founder and CEO of The Gilchrist Collection, shares her life as an entrepreneur.
Co-founded by Conrad Poulson in 2014, Huq has been at the forefront of utilising cutting- edge technologies and innovative mobility research methods.
Going from employee to founder was a huge leap of faith. I announced the agency just a few days after turning 26 and like most 26-year-olds, I hadn’t ever owned or run a business before.
Patchwork Health was co-founded by Dr Anas Nader and Dr Jing Ouyang with the mission to make truly flexible and sustainable working a reality for all healthcare staff, amid the current workforce crisis.
After a lifetime working as a project manager for some of the world’s largest tech companies, Jeb Buckler set up Startup Giants PLC to ensure that no good tech concepts should go to waste.
So, I encouraged Ben to officially incorporate The Handbag Clinic as its own independent luxury handbag offshoot in 2013 – all still operated through our ecommerce platform at the time.
I’m Diana Babics, founder of Nourish Awards. I began in finance (accounts and auditing) before deciding this simply wasn’t for me. I then headed off to university as a mature student, initially to study art and design and latterly interior architecture.
greenworkx is co-founded by two education sector workers, Mat llic and Richard Ng, who are passionate about the planet and believe reskilling and upskilling UK workers into green jobs is future-proofing the economy.
Blaise Hope, founder and CEO of Origin Hope, brings two decades of media experience to his groundbreaking content partnership venture.
Co-founded by Nisha Ramisetty and Sam Williams, the idea for Naksha was born in 2020 when cooking became an escape during lockdown.
Charlene Hurlock was inspired by her daughter and her best friend who independently started swapping their pre-loved clothes. Aside from being a Mum, Charlene's background is predominately in global exhibition sales and media advertising.
In North America, Iced Teas (Coldbrew) is a bustling £2bn marketplace. Yet, in the UK, despite being the second fastest-growing soft drink sub-category (after cold brew coffee), there is still a lack of appreciation for brands like Kaytea.
I’m Melissa Gauge, founder of SpareMyTime. I left my corporate role in 2016 to set up a City-based business with a couple of partners and another business by myself, an online platform.
Founded in 2006 by Amelia Peckham and Clare Braddel, Cool Crutches & Walking Sticks aims to empower those who need support to walk.
I’m Gerry Lianos - the co-founder of Raffolux, an online raffling platform that gives people the chance to win amazing prizes for a low cost and support charities close to their hearts.
Jason Tim is the CEO and co-founder of CloudSmiths and has been CEO for the past two years. Prior to this, he held previous roles at the company such as Managing Director and Sales Director.
My name is Lucy Bramley and I'm the founder of Ruched & Ready, one of the UK's leading size inclusive fashion labels helping women embrace their curves and feel confident.
KBF Enterprises was established in 2008 by Managing Director, Kieran Fisher and is the business behind two of the most recognised sports nutrition brands in the UK – Bodybuilding Warehouse® and Warrior®.
Matt Cater is co-founder of Clix Technologies, an innovative new company that offers the UK’s only mobile-first, fully customisable, Web App-based smart lockers.
Ben Maruthappu is a London-based doctor and CEO of Cera, a multi-award winning digital-first home healthcare company, which has grown 100-fold in the past three years, now delivering over 50,000 patient appointments a day.
The Natural Love Company was founded by friends and wedding photographers Ben Foster and Barney Walters. The Cornwall-based business was launched as a result of their previous careers being put on halt by the pandemic.
As the CEO of Botify, Adrien has had both a global and notable career, co-founding Botify back in 2012 and thereafter relocating to the United States from France. Adrien is passionate about shifting the organic search marketing landscape.
Sançar has spent years leading marketing teams at high-profile startups, including Typeform and Hotjar. Early in his career, he struggled to set work-life boundaries and lacked a clear understanding of his personal wellbeing needs and values.
Co-founded by Mike Robertson and Adrian Brown, AbbeyCross is the world’s first B2B trading and compliance marketplace, focused on improving underlying market infrastructure for Emerging Market (“EM”) currencies.
My name is Derk Roodhuyzen de Vries and I am the CEO and co-founder of Fixico. Alongside my business partner Mark van Laar, we created Fixico back in 2014 to revolutionise the car repair industry.
Linkup was founded by the two Manchester-based entrepreneurs, Jack Peagam and Ben Whatson, as they aim to step away from ‘traditional' career paths and combine their shared passion for creativity with business.
Emilie Vallauri is a 27-year-old program manager at Techstars with a passion for innovation. Born and raised in Nice, France, Emilie studied business and political sciences before embarking on a career punctuated by innovation and supporting startups.
Zsuzsa has been instrumental in growing Antavo from a startup to a scaleup. As Chief Strategy Officer and co-founder, she is transforming the company into a unique loyalty technology vendor, offering a next-gen, best-in-class solution to the loyalty sector.
Software engineering and product development is my specialisation - and I have had a wide range of experience across the industry. I had a brilliant 22-year long career at IBM, working across a number of roles, which I really loved.
Holly Zoccolan is an entrepreneur and Founder of new parenting app, Carol. Before Founding Carol and entering the tech space, Holly built successful online wellness brand The Health Zoc in 2016.
Anna Gudmundson is the CEO and co-founder of Sensate, a device that emits infrasonic waves that are synchronised to resonate with the specially composed hemispheric audio in the app.
Rebecca is Senior Vice President of Clients, Partnership and Creative Transformation at CreativeX, provider of an industry-first AI driven data platform to help the world’s most loved brands including PepsiCo, Nestle and Facebook achieve creative excellence.
Bitcoin, the digital currency conceived in 2009 by the mysterious Satoshi Nakamoto, is a financial phenomenon. Despite the volatility of global markets, it has demonstrated remarkable resilience.