You’ve had that bolt-of-lightning moment of inspiration and formed an idea. What next?

That’s where the Advanced Hackspace comes in. The Advanced Hackspace is Imperial’s prototyping hub, based on the White City Campus. Three purpose designed prototyping and fabrication workspaces, a team of Hack Fellow experts on hand to support, and all the latest equipment to bring your ideas to life.

Hackspace is a community like no other. We bring together inventive minds from all backgrounds, disciplines and levels of expertise to collaborate, experiment and innovate. All in the name of making amazing things happen!

And you can be a part of it. For free!

Events, Programmes & Support

LevelUP Workshops

We are big believers in learning by doing, so whether you are looking to build your digital design skills and bring your ideas to life in 3D or want to learn how to code in 2 hours and programme like a pro or master the basics of electronics and learn how to design your own electronic circuit board, we’ve got you covered. This is a regular series of pick and mix style introductory workshops designed to boost your technical know-how and help you learn some of the practical skills, tools and approaches involved in prototyping at the Hackspace.

Hackstarter

What would you do with a boost of £500 for you next big idea? Hackstarter is designed to turn your inventive and entrepreneurial ideas and make them into a reality, with a cash boost to get off the ground.

Hack Surgeries

We host weekly Hack Surgeries for support and guidance to get your ideas off the ground! Whether that is troubleshooting support, feedback and advice, or just a friendly sounding board if you have some ideas but are not sure where to get started.

Further information about the Hackspace and updates on activities can be found at imperialhackspace.com. Stay up-to-date by joining our mailing list or check out the Hackspace on Instagram. If you have questions for the team you can email advancedhackspace@imperial.ac.uk. 

You can also visit the Entrepreneurship Portal to discover all of the entrepreneurship support on offer across the whole of Imperial.

One of the things that drives employees crazy is a boss who micromanages them, yet it is still common practice from the C-suite down. Micromanagers parse their role in terms of two main functions, direction and control, and believe they add value by getting involved in everything.

Not so, says Frans Campher, CEO of Integral Leadership Dynamics, who has over 20 years’ experience in executive education, leadership development and as a business coach for senior blue-chip executives. In his view those who hang on to the direct and control model of people management are going to struggle to bring employees with them in a hybrid working environment.

Campher, who is also a visiting fellow and director of the executive education programme at Imperial Business School in London, says companies are only beginning to realise the scope of the challenges posed by hybrid working and that the consequences, good and bad, won’t really become apparent for another two years. In the meantime those that want to thrive will need to transform from organisations that manage people to organisations that lead them.

“What’s not going to work is managers who feel they have to control the heck out of everything, and who see hybrid as a loss of control,” he says.

“I actually find it scary that technology providers are saying we can build programmes so you can monitor your people. This completely misses the fundamental point that if you treat people as adults, they will show up as adults. If you set high expectations and ask for their input into those expectations, they will come to the party and give you discretionary effort.”

What’s not going to work is managers who feel they have to control the heck out of everything, and who see hybrid as a loss of control

Side effect

Campher notes that one of the common side effects of climbing the corporate ladder is selective amnesia.

“Someone lands a promotion and suddenly thinks they have to control everything,” he says. “They forget that when they were being led, they appreciated their freedom and being seen and heard. They also appreciated knowing that their ideas mattered, as did the opportunity to grow and develop.

“I think creating the culture and conditions that allow people to do their best work is going to be the biggest challenge of hybrid working, not trying to control their every move.”

At its simplest leading is about being, whereas managing is about doing. The typical focus of managers is the nuts and bolts of daily tasks such as budgeting, planning and organising. By contrast, leaders deal more in strategy, developing the organisational culture and motivating and inspiring those around them to keep the show on the road.

However, the transition demands more than a change of job description. It’s about recognising that now more than ever companies need leadership and organisational agility that’s equal to the growing complexity of the business environment.

I think creating the culture and conditions that allow people to do their best work is going to be the biggest challenge of hybrid working, not trying to control their every move.

Types of leader

An agile leader is someone who can operate on more than one level. In Campher’s view, it demands the ability to operate on three and the skill to combine them. He describes these three levels as expert leader, achiever leader and catalytic leader.

“As an expert leader, I’m very good at command, control, directing, planning and organising. I have one-to-one relationships with the people I work with but I don’t create a cohesive team,” he says. “An achiever leader is one who starts to work through others and builds a team.

“An expert leader will look at the next two to three months and will deal with the urgent things in front of them. An achiever leader probably has a one year horizon, they use the team more effectively and have some organisational mission and purpose. The next level up is the catalytic leader, whose job is no longer to command and control in the short- term but to totally embrace the enterprise view of the business.”

The majority of leaders fall into the expert or achiever categories, with catalytic leaders, who know how to influence, work with stakeholders and lead change, much thinner on the ground. What Campher tries to do through coaching and executive education is help people lose their direct and control mentality and see the bigger picture.

He calls it filling the “expansion gap” and he doesn’t underestimate the shift in identity this requires, pointing out that when you ask someone who has spent their career micromanaging to stop doing so, they often panic because they don’t know what to do instead.

Catalyst

“It’s asking people to accept that they are no longer the expert driving their particular function, but someone who catalyses the whole culture of an organisation,” he says. “However, you often have leaders that don’t understand this third piece. It’s not that they only hang out there. Rather they have the range to be an expert, an achiever and a catalyst and can shift up and down depending on what’s required.”

To make it easier to understand the process of moving from managing to leading, Campher draws on the work of Benjamin Zander, orchestral conductor and author of the Art of Possibility.

“Zander has a TED talk on the transformative passion of music and he talks about leaders needing to make the shift from playing an instrument to becoming the conductor,” he says. “The job of the conductor is to create shiny eyes in the orchestra so that there are shiny eyes in the audience. That’s a wonderful metaphor to use for leaders too: I need to become a ‘conductor’ who creates shiny eyes in my people.”

This article was originally published on The Irish Times.

What is a Weekend MBA?

The Weekend MBA at Imperial Business School is a part-time programme that combines one weekend of study every month (Friday to Sunday) at our London campus with independent study. The programme offers the same management expertise and career prospects as a traditional MBA, so despite the part-time route, it will be transformative for your career trajectory.

There is no one-size-fits all for an MBA. A career break and full-time study doesn’t suit everyone; whether that’s because you love your job, don’t want to pause your career progress, or forgo your salary for one to two years. That’s where the Weekend MBA comes in.

Who is the part-time Weekend MBA for?

Weekend MBA students join the programme to create impact and accelerate their careers. Our class of 2022-23 students have an average of seven years of work experience, however, the entry requirement to join the programme is three years of consecutive experience, so it’s a great pathway into management for those who are early on in their career. The average age of a Weekend MBA student in the 2022-23 class at Imperial Business School is 30-years-old.

Of our class of 2020 graduates, 70% changed roles during or within four months of completing the programme, over 50% moved to another organisation and 34% of these students successfully changed sectors. This shows that the Weekend MBA is a great option for those wanting to grow in their own company, move organisations or even transition into a new sector.

What are the benefits of a part-time MBA?

1. Bring your experience to the classroom

A significant amount of work experience under your belt provides an endless amount of value when you re-enter the classroom for the MBA. It may have been a few years since you last studied, but in the meantime, you have built a wealth of experience from the first few formative years in your career. Combine this with a class of other ambitious working professionals from a wide range of industries and the insight you will generate is limitless. You will look at business challenges through a lens of lived experience and be able to demonstrate this value when tackling discussions in the classroom.

2. Make an impact in your organisation

One of the unique benefits that part-time study, like the Weekend MBA, offers is the ability to create an immediate impact at work. You can take your learnings from one weekend and start applying them to your job the following Monday. Not only does this increase enjoyment in your role, as you start to see opportunities and challenges in a different light, but your organisation will notice the positive impact you are making too. This is crucial when leveraging a promotion or new position. If you have gone down the corporate sponsorship funding route, you will be demonstrating the value of your company’s investment.

3. Study around family commitments

Part-time programmes offer the benefit that they are, indeed, part-time. This means that while there is a lot to squeeze into your diary, the main bulk of studying occurs on one weekend. Therefore, the remaining three weekends of the month are free for you to balance personal study time with your family and social commitments. While sacrifices may need to be made in some areas, studying an MBA doesn’t mean you have to give up on everything outside of study altogether.

Why make the commitment while you work full-time?

The decision to study an MBA is an investment in yourself. If you want to make strides in your career while still getting to experience life as an on-campus student, then the Weekend MBA might just be for you.

Time management is crucial to making part-time study viable, however, with the support of the Business School, your work, family and friends, there is no reason why persevering with your goal to do an MBA isn’t achievable.

Imperial’s Executive MBA was the UK’s first blended MBA programme, created with leaders of the future in mind and developed specifically to facilitate advanced learning without impacting career progression.

Choosing to study an MBA of any kind is a momentous and potentially life-changing decision that requires a significant amount of research, planning, and consideration to help you choose the programme that best suits your goals and circumstances.

What is an Executive MBA degree?

An Executive MBA is a unique learning format that allows high calibre professionals from all kinds of industries and professions to pursue their ambition to become global leaders in business – without pausing their careers.

Imperial’s Executive MBA is a 22-month programme that develops leaders for a technology-driven world through a combination of on-campus and online learning. With three in-person sessions every four weeks (Fridays and Saturdays), you’ll experience a seamless learning environment that fits around your full-time work with the support and resources necessary to help you succeed.

What will I learn?

The core modules of the Executive MBA programme cover the general functions of management and allow you to explore essential business topics and skills necessary to become an effective leader in your field.

Examples of core modules include:

• Accounting and Corporate Reporting Analysis
• Managerial Economics
• Marketing Management
• Organisational Behaviour
• Corporate Finance
• Corporate Innovation and Intrapreneurship
• Responsible Leadership and Corporate Success

You’ll also undertake the Executive Leadership Journey – a transformational combination of coaching and experiential learning scenarios specifically designed to help shape you as a leader and help you understand your personal leadership style.

The direction of your Executive MBA will also be shaped by your choice of electives – a suite of over 50 specialised modules spread across five subject areas: Analytics and Operations, Entrepreneurship and Innovation, Finance, Leadership and Organisation, Marketing, and Strategy.

What will I experience?

In addition to a wealth of on-campus and online learning opportunities, the Executive MBA also gives you the chance to explore business in international markets through international residencies, which will expose you to two of the most important economies in the world, outside of our base in London. In addition, we offer optional ‘Glocal’ electives that see students visiting top business schools in Europe, Singapore, North America and beyond.

These modules are specifically tailored to expose you to some of the most important economies in the world outside of London, and learn how the theories and cases studied in class can be applied in various international contexts.

Entrepreneurial Journey

Another key part of the Executive MBA experience is the Entrepreneurial Journey. Working in teams with your MBA classmates, the Entrepreneurial Journey is a six-month optional elective project in which you’ll develop a value proposition, carry out customer discovery research, validate the product or service, and create a fully-fledged business proposal. You’ll also have the option of collaborating with students from across the entire Imperial ecosystem, as well as design students from the Royal College of Art or Imperial academic entrepreneurs via the Imperial Enterprise division.

Whether you are an aspiring entrepreneur or intrapreneur or want to find out whether the entrepreneurial life is for you, the Entrepreneurial Journey is a safe space to explore an actual business opportunity in a practical environment.

What does an Executive MBA cost?

Imperial’s Executive MBA has a fee of £69,000 in 2024 for all students regardless of location. This tuition fee is split equally between the two years of the programme and can be paid in one instalment per year.

There are several ways to fund your Executive MBA, from financing through private loans and personal resources, to employer sponsorship and Imperial’s wide range of scholarships. Finding the right funding method for you is an important and often time-consuming process, so planning early and reviewing all of your options before applying is key to ensuring success.

How do I apply to the Executive MBA?

There are three main steps to the application processs: apply online, the interview and the final decision. Application deadlines are aligned with deadlines for our scholarships. Our Executive MBA is highly competitive, especially if you want to be in with chance of receiving a scholarship, so we recommend applying as early as possible.

The Executive MBA is a career-shifting experience that can put you on the express path to the C-suite or at the forefront of the world’s business landscape.

Discover how to apply or sign up to receive updates and reminders about application deadlines.

At Imperial Enterprise Lab we’re passionate about inspiring the next generation of student innovators and entrepreneurs and are the first port of call if you’re looking to test an idea, tackle a pressing social or environmental challenge, develop new skills to help your career, start a business or join a community of people who want to make a difference.

We help students to think outside the box, break boundaries and dare to be different. We think anyone can be an entrepreneur and believe diversity is a competitive advantage not a tick box.

Each year we work with over 2,000 Imperial students and alumni. You can read about some of them here, and you can even get support from us now. We’ve opened up our Idea Surgeries to offer holders, so if you have an idea you’d like some advice on or are already working on something and want some advice, book in with one of the team here.

From competitions to speaker events and hackathons to skills seminars, co-working spaces and expert mentors, we offer all the support you need, free of charge and accessible to everyone.

Here are just a few of the ways we can support you on your entrepreneurial journey.  

Co-working space

Our co-working space in the basement of the Sherfield building is open to all students from 10am-6pm to get some work done, work on your business idea or take a break in our chillout corner with a free coffee.

Events

Whether you’re looking for inspirational speakers, community events or want to see our teams take to the stage to pitch for prizes, we have the event for you.

We run a range of regular events including:

• Community Collider - Imperial Enterprise Lab’s monthly community get together where students from different departments and faculties across Imperial can come together, collide, and form interesting new pairings and connections!
• Startup Masterclasses - on a range of entrepreneurial topics such as pitching and financial modelling!
• Imperial BE - an entrepreneurial leadership series of events for students of Black and mixed Black heritage.

Check out all upcoming events here.

Programmes

This summer, we have our Global Challenge Lab - the chance to join students from across the world to form international teams and generate solutions that address the UN Sustainable Development Goal 13: Climate Action across a 10-day programme of workshops, guest speakers and mentoring.

We also recently held our annual Venture Catalyst Challenge - Imperial’s flagship entrepreneurial competition for Imperial students and alumni to develop an innovative idea for commercialisation AND win big! We’re talking 7 intensive weeks of evening masterclasses, 1-1 coaching, and meetings with experts, all with one aim – to help you bring your idea to commercial reality while growing your knowledge, skills, and network. It’s a unique opportunity not to be missed!

All of our programmes are listed on our website if you want to find out more of what we have on offer.

Expert Advice

In addition to the above, we offer expert 1:1 advice for students and recent alumni at all stages of their innovation journey from:

• Idea Surgeries - your first step to unlocking all the amazing resources on offer at the E-Lab. We help you understand what you need to do next, give you practical suggestions and assess what resources would benefit you the most. It might be some one-to-one coaching or applying to an Enterprise Lab programme.
• Experts-in-Residents - a group of advisors with tons of real-life startup experience ready to pass on their knowledge, answer your questions and help you develop your understanding and confidence.
• Imperial Venture Mentoring Service - a mentoring service that’s open to any Imperial student, alumni or staff member that can show us that they’re ready to take the big step from idea development to business launch.

Dama Health

Co-founders

Elena Rueda, Co-founder & CEO (MSc Innovation, Entrepreneurship & Management, 2020)

Paulina Cecula, Co-founder & CPO (BSc Management 2020, MBBS 2022)

The Problem

Current contraceptive methods available to women globally, often come with harmful side effects, including blood clots, migraines, irregular bleeding, loss of libido and mental health related problems. This is well known and more frequently being spoken about in the media, press and medical journals as we become more educated around the topic. For example, you may have heard about the comparisons of the AstraZeneca vaccine and the contraceptive pill earlier in 2020? Studies spotlighted that in the UK, blood clots occurred in people taking the AstraZeneca vaccine at a rate of roughly one in every 250,000, whereas blood clots caused by the pill are estimated to affect one in every 1,000 women each year. Data which we have known about for years but that no-one really batted an eye to.

The Solution

We believe that the future of women’s health will be personalised medicine. Dama Health is revolutionising the way in which women are matched to their contraception. We have created contraception matching tests which consist of digital and genetic screening to identify the most suitable contraception type and formulation for your individual needs. The ultimate product will utilize our digital screening test and at-home testing kit to gather pertinent data such as medical history, personal preferences, and genetic differences that can be incorporated into evidence-based and truly personalized recommendations of the most suitable contraception type and brand.

Our products are being developed with doctors and female health experts and based on the newest scientific evidence. Our proprietary screening tests take into consideration the patient’s medical needs, personal preferences, previous experience as well as the different side effect profiles of hormonal contraceptives. Our genetic panel helps to take things one step further, and identify potential risks and predispositions to personalise the recommendation even further, for example by informing users and clinicians if they are at higher risk of developing specific side effects or lower effectiveness of hormonal medication.

LinkedIn: /dama-health

You can keep up to date with all the latest news and events from the Imperial Enterprise Lab on their wesbite, Instagram and Twitter. If you have any questions you can email them directly at enterprise.lab@imperial.ac.uk.

Ollie: I’m glad that you’ve been able to hear some first-hand accounts of people’s experiences that can be so valuable. You never know who you may work with in the future so making these connections too is so important. What does Asia Business Club have planned for the rest of the academic year?

Asia Business Club: For the rest of the academic year, we plan to continue sharing industry newsletters regularly and releasing more podcast episodes. We are looking to host a networking event and coffee chat and then something for our farewell party towards the end of the year!

Ollie: Many more exciting things to come then! As you know, we do include these features in our admitted student’s newsletters. What would you say to a future student considering joining one of the IB Careers clubs?

Asia Business Club: We highly encourage all future students to join IB Careers Clubs. It is an effective way in broadening your professional network, and there are opportunities to meet like-minded students. The Career Clubs at Imperial Business School are very diverse, they cater to different industries and sectors with a huge variety of events. Most of the clubs also gather useful information regarding industry news and job openings, which helps you strengthen your commercial awareness. You can be sure to gain something no matter which club you choose to join, it’s also a nice to break up the work and have a balanced Imperial life!

Follow the Asia Business Club on Instagram, LinkedIn, and Facebook. The Asia Business Club is not just a place for those from Asia, but also for anyone interested in businesses to and from Asia. Don’t hesitate to reach out for more information! You can contact them via ibasiabusinessclub@imperial.ac.uk if you have any questions.

Ollie: Glad to hear that you’ve been able to make such great connections and also been able to have some fun along the way! What would you say your proudest achievement is as a club?

SIRB:  Our proudest achievement is when we hear positive feedback from our members on the events we have organised. We work really well together and work hard as a team to organise various events in different formats for our members and it was very rewarding to hear their feedback and know that we are making an impact!

Ollie: It’s great to see that you’ve made such valuable connections and friendships with each other. Many people reading this will be thinking about how to make the most out of their time at the Business School. What would you say to a future student considering joining one of the IB Careers Clubs?

SIRB: We are such a diverse team from a range of programmes across the Business School. We may not have had the opportunity to meet each other if it weren't for the club, it's been really fun! It is a fantastic way to meet new people and gain insights about the industry in which you are interested. There is something for everyone as all careers clubs cater to specific sectors and have events in several formats. It broadens your horizons as you are able to interact with students from different programs with similar interests. You can be sure to find a brilliant and supportive team regardless of which club you choose to join. Moreover, going beyond the classroom and engaging in other activities will enhance your university experience and network.

Follow the Social Impact & Responsible Business Club on Instagram, LinkedIn and Twitter! If you are interested in being a part of their committee, the applications for President and Vice President will open from June and will be communicated via The Hub. Applications for other positions will be open once President and Vice President are appointed and tend to take place from October onwards. You can contact them via ibsi-rbclub@imperial.ac.uk if you have any questions!