The National Council for Graduate Entrepreneurship (NCGE) was formed in 2004 with the aim of raising the profile of entrepreneurship and the option of starting your own business as a career choice amongst students and graduates. By understanding the circumstances in which graduate entrepreneurship can flourish, NCGE's goal is to influence, and inspire, and increase in the number of students and graduates who give serious thought to self-employment or business start-up.
The Make It Happen programme was launched in Autumn 2009
The Autumn/Winter of 2009/2010 saw the Make It Happen team run programme days with the universities talking about “being your own boss”
- This involved brainstorming sessions,
- Worse case scenario training,
- Listening to people who had left university and set up their own businesses
- Talks from HSBC, Universities and Business Link about support
Spring 2010 launched the online mentoring programme. Giving you a journey to follow from idea’s to business growth. With self help resources and questions to get you thinking and planning.
Ability to share what you have done so far by completing your “My Plan” takes you to the next step and gets you matched up with an online mentor. The mentor will then help you set monthly actions to keep you on track to become your own boss giving you feedback and help every step of the way.
May 2010 saw the launch of the online weekly webinars. Online training every week with a live presentation followed by a Q&A session. The success of this has been so great that we are now running 2-3 evenings a week. If you have missed a webinar don’t worry, you can also watch past webinars and look at the questions asked during the live session.
September 2010 saw the launch of the virtual session. This set of video’s will take you through the journey of planning to be your own boss with video case studies of Make It Happen mentees who have already set up in business with our help. You can watch the video’s as modules or all in one go, and as you watch a section you can take what you have learnt and to start filling in your My Plan with your ideas to be matched up and receive the support of a mentor.
What does this cost me?
The programme is government funded and the mentors give their time for free so this programme will not cost you anything financially.
How do I access the Make It Happen Programme?
You need to register at www.mihmentoring.com and then start filling in what you can on the My Plan.