Master's programme in ICT Entrepreneurship
Visions and GoalsThe network society will require millions of ICT entrepreneurs accepting the challenge to create new ventures adding value for users and customers, owners and all of society. This program will prepare them for the task.Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) play a key role today in spawning new ideas, methods, processes, products and organizational change. It is, however, the commercialization of these new ideas, methods, and processes that create the value for users and customers, owners and society in general. Therefore, ICT is inextricably linked to entrepreneurship. The objective of this program is at the same time grand and practical: to increase the ICT entrepreneurship capacity in the world by deepening the students’ technical knowledge in ICT and combine this knowledge with new techniques and information from the field of entrepreneurship. The expected outcome are technical students that not only understand the important relation between ICT and value creation, but also have the competence and skill to take up the challenge of new venture creation. When we speak of entrepreneurship we are speaking about the process broadly including the value creation process within established organizations as well as the creation of new ventures. Developing the worldCreating students that have deep technical knowledge as well as knowledge in entrepreneurship is an important task in the industrialized world as well as in the developing world. ICT underpins the utilization and application of many other technologies. ICT allows for the interconnectedness between varying skills and organizations and is often the primary source for new venture creation, which further develops the needs and wants of growing and demanding economies.The importance of ICT entrepreneurs for the less developed world cannot be overestimated. The first reason relates to education. ICT entrepreneurship can leverage the capacity of trained teachers through ICT-enhanced and distance learning. It can help improve the efficiency and effectiveness of education agencies and related bodies through strategic application of ICT-enabled competence development. It also broadens the availability of quality educational materials and resources through the use and availability of ICT. All of which can help reverse the so-called brain drain. Further, education has an important indirect effect on economic development. Additionally, ICT entrepreneurship and creation of new ventures can have a powerful and direct impact on economic development, because they can rapidly create jobs, create and redistribute massive amount of wealth, expand the middle class, increase the tax base and ultimately help create a more stable society. DiversityWe believe in the importance of diversity. A mix of disciplines, methodologies and outlooks, generates new ideas and thoughts. As a consequence, this Masters Program recruits students globally and is organised in the framework of the Stockholm School of Entrepreneurship (SSES). SSES is a joint initiative by the leading universities in Technology, Economics, Medicine and Design in Stockholm; the Royal Institute of Technology (KTH), the Stockholm School of Economics (SSE), Karolinska Institute (KI) and the University College of Arts, Crafts and Design (Konstfack),ImmersionThe quickest way to learn a language is by totally submerging oneself in the environment. This Masters Program has been designed to allow the students to immerse themselves in the world and culture of ICT entrepreneurship.The Program is offered by the KTH schol of ICT. It is a university resting on a sound and long academic foundation. With the focus of research on the infrastructure of the information society, its primary objective is to stimulate the interplay between technology, people and society. KTH School of ICT is located in Kista Science City, one of the most important ICT-clusters in Europe, just 15 minutes north of Stockholm City. Over 72 per cent of the wireless ICT companies have a presence in this area. The students will live, learn and experience life literally meters from some of the world’s most exciting, cutting edge research and innovation. As a result of living and breathing so close to this, we expect that the students will see ICT experience that no region in the world can match. |
Specific EligibilityAt least one semester (30 credits) of the prerequisite studies must have been carried out in an area relevant to the major subject: e.g. computer and telecommunications, radio communication, protocol validation, security, operating systems, distributed systems, computer systems, computer architecture, electronic systems design and programming. Compulsory prerequisites are undergraduate courses of at least 6 credits in each of the following areas:
FormatThe ICT Entrepreneurship programme is a two-year masters programme with the curriculum specified above. The programme includes four semesters over two years. Each semester is 20 weeks long. The first year consists of discipline-oriented courses taught in periods of 10 weeks each (half a semester). The Second year is organised to support problem-oriented, project-driven learning. The first semester of the second year is spent in teams facilitating a reinforced learning experience based on peer learning and vicarious learning. The second semester includes an individual thesis project to be completed on time 20 weeks after the start.In the Swedish education system, one week of full time successful study is equal to 1.5 points. The academic year is 40 weeks long and divided in four periods. Full time successful studies will thus result in 15 credits per period and 60 credits per year. To be granted the Master degree (Teknologie Magister) from this program, the student should have taken courses of at least 90 credits and a thesis project of 30 credits within the major subject. At least 105 credits out of the 120 should correspond to the courses in the list below. Up to 15 credits courses and the thesis project may be chosen from related areas after approval from the programme director. Elective coursesSelection of elective courses the spring semester of the first year has to be completed no later than 15 November and for the fall semester the second year no later than 15 May. Presentations of the elective courses will be provided at an information event during the semester about two weeks before the course is offered. The information event will be announced one month before it occurs.Students who have completed courses corresponding to those in the curriculum before starting the program may after approval from the programme director select alternative courses. Please note that it is not allowed to sign up for more than 37.5 credits per semester without a written permission from the programme director. Contacts:Program director: Peter Sjödin |