THE OXFORD FOUNDRY A CENTRE FOR ENTREPRENEURIAL EXCELLENCE
OXFORD FOUNDRY
WELCOME TO THE FOUNDRY The Oxford Foundry was opened in October 2017 by Apple CEO Tim Cook. The Foundry is the new entrepreneurship centre at the heart of Oxford University, the result of an initiative led by Professor Peter Tufano and Saïd Business School, and established with a founding gift from Reid Hoffman of LinkedIn. The Foundry is committed to enhancing employability, developing the next generation of entrepreneurial leaders, and contributing to creating social and economic impact. As a centre led by entrepreneurs, for entrepreneurs, we focus on people first. Our aim is to engender an inclusive and diverse ecosystem, where we empower all 23,000 Oxford University students to be entrepreneurial in outlook and action. Since opening, our Foundry student community has grown steadily, with 2000+ actively using the centre and engaging in our experiential enterprise education programmes, which draw on expertise from all four academic divisions of the University. We have launched our accelerator, OXFO L.E.V8, which is dedicated to producing sustainable and scalable ventures. These are exciting times – the Foundry is building an ecosystem where creativity and entrepreneurship live and breathe. I invite you to be part of our global collective.
Ana Bakshi Director of the Oxford Foundry
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OXFORD FOUNDRY
WHY DOES OXFORD NEED THE FOUNDRY? With a rapidly growing proportion of Oxford students now expressing an interest in entrepreneurship and starting their own business, it’s clear that Oxford needs a place that will support students to become more entrepreneurial. The activities and programmes taking place in the Foundry are independent of any academic course or curriculum, and students are not assessed on their participation. Instead, the Oxford Foundry is focused on delivering entrepreneurial skills and learning programmes that will have a positive impact on our society and economy, on a local and global level. Employability is a major focus for what we do at the Foundry. We are inspiring our students to think more entrepreneurially, to find like-minded people, to build resilience and overcome their fear of failure. Through our programmes, we are providing our future lawyers, bankers and medics with technology and problem-solving skills that are relevant to the changing work landscape, and helping them work toward societal progress within their own respective fields.
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OXFORD FOUNDRY
OUR LEADERSHIP AND ADVISORS
The Oxford Foundry was set up in an initiative led by Saïd Business School, with a generous gift from Reid Hoffman of LinkedIn which provided the initial funding for the project. Reid continues to serve as a Senior Advisor to the Foundry. Professor Peter Tufano is the Peter Moores Dean at Oxford’s Saïd Business School. Prior to Oxford, Peter was part of the founding team that launched Harvard University’s Innovation Labs, and he is strongly committed to making entrepreneurship education accessible to all students at the University of Oxford. The Foundry’s Director, Ana Bakshi, previously co-founded and scaled the Entrepreneurship Institute at King’s College London and is an experienced ecosystem builder in the enterprise education field. Our Advisors and Board Members: Brent Hoberman (Chairman of the Advisory Board) – Co-founder of Founders Factory, lastminute.com and Firstminute Capital Biz Stone – Co-Founder of Twitter, Medium and Jelly Toby Coppel – Co-founder and Partner, Mosaic Ventures Pete Flint – Founder of Trulia, Managing Partner at NFX Mohamed Amersi – Founder & CEO of Emergent Telecom Ventures Alexsis de Raadt St James – Founder & Managing Partner, Merian Ventures Jorn Lyseggen – Founder & CEO of Meltwater Jeff Wong – Global Chief Innovation Officer, EY Phil Libin – Co-founder of Evernote and All Turtles Thomas Hellmann – Professor of Entrepreneurship & Innovation at Saïd Business School 5
OXFORD FOUNDRY
OUR BUILDING, OUR HISTORY
The Oxford Foundry is located in the heart of historic Oxford. The building itself was constructed in 1913 and it originally housed the Oxford Cold Storage and Ice Factory. As the years passed and the need for such a facility dwindled, the building was put to a variety of other uses, both commercial and social: it was most recently a comedy venue and nightclub. Saïd Business School saw the potential in the building, and it took 15 weeks of intensive building and careful refurbishment by their estates team during the summer of 2017 to transform the murky nightclub interior into our light, bright and inspiring Oxford Foundry. Their dedication to the task shines through in the details you see around you when you visit, from the hand-stencilled signage to the upcycled shelving, made from salvaged and restored glass and timber. It’s a unique space with a warm, welcoming vibe, where students can connect, learn and feed their entrepreneurial curiosity.
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OXFORD FOUNDRY
OUTREACH & ENGAGEMENT
Being student-led and working with students to co-create our programmes is central to the Foundry’s ethos, and we work hard to ensure that we are delivering useful and relevant learning opportunities for our students. To this end, we have put together our student advisory board, with representatives from 26 Oxford clubs and societies, some of which have as many as 5000 members. These include the Boat Club and Boxing society, as well as the Blockchain and AI societies. This group meets regularly, and their ideas and input helps us to shape our programmes and make sure that all Oxford students can get useful learning and skills at the Foundry.
“With the Foundry’s support, I’ve created and delivered a 12-week coding course to over 100 of my fellow students, and I’m now getting valuable work experience through an internship with one of the start-ups that was selected for the OXFO L.E.V8 accelerator. This supports my aspiration to start my own business after graduating.” Alex Cheema, BSc Physics student and President, St Hugh’s College, Oxford Blockchain Society
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OXFORD FOUNDRY
THE FOUNDRY IN NUMBERS
49%
40%
51%
Men (60%) vs Women (40%)
79
Humanities
Medical Sciences
Social Sciences
Mathematics, Physical & Life Sciences
Undergraduates (51%) vs Postgraduate (49%) students
60%
46% 30% 12% 12% Number of different nationalities (79)
Subject area splits
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OXFORD FOUNDRY
SKILLING UP
Our experiential learning programme offers hands-on, high-quality entrepreneurship learning for all Oxford students. Our core education themes focus on the psychology of an entrepreneur, on familiarising students with tech concepts such as AI and Blockchain which will shape their future, and on encouraging creative thinking as an intrapreneur, alongside idea-generation and challenge-based competitions. Impact matters to us, we are constantly evaluating our student learning programme and our impact through surveys, case studies, and through benchmarking our activities against learning objectives.
“The Foundry fills a niche in Oxford, providing entrepreneurial inspiration and expanding our education beyond the academic. Here, we can learn the building blocks that are crucial for personal development – becoming more emotionally intelligent leaders, growing our creativity and working in teams.” Claudia Havranek, DPhil student, Plant Sciences, Magdalen College and Oxford University women’s boxing society
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OXFORD FOUNDRY
THE O X F O L. E. V 8 A C C E L E R AT O R OXFO L.E.V8 is the University of Oxford’s new start-up accelerator, located in the Foundry’s Amersi Foundation accelerator space. It provides support and guidance to selected early-stage start-up teams that include at least one Oxford University student, member of staff, or alumnus/ alumna within 10 years of graduation. The high-potential ventures that are selected for the L.E.V8 accelerator get a six-month residency at the Foundry, and an intensive training programme. As the Foundry is sector-agnostic, the programme is tailored to our ventures’ specific needs. They also have direct access to a network of experts, thought leaders and highly regarded entrepreneurship practitioners throughout their journey. Legal, HR and financial support are also included. Our impact intention is two-fold: we will track revenue generation, traction and job creation amongst other metrics for each team, and we will also focus on the development of team members into purpose-driven, entrepreneurial leaders.
“We are excited and inspired to have been selected for the first cohort of the L.E.V8 accelerator! It makes a huge difference to us and our young business to be supported in this way and to have access to the Foundry’s impressive network of experts.” Danae Maragouthakis, co-founder of Pod Health
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OXFORD FOUNDRY
O X F O L. E. V 8 WOMEN
To demonstrate its commitment to supporting Oxford University’s women founders to take their ideas forward with confidence and purpose, the Foundry is also planning the launch of the L.E.V8 Women start-up programme for female founders, the first series of which will run during the summer of 2018. Providing immersive learning workshops, guidance and advice from mentors, and access to a strong and diverse network of visiting experts, L.E.V8 Women aims to inspire and skill up female founders, and give them the confidence and vision to take their venture to the next level.
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OXFORD FOUNDRY
GET I N V O LV E D
The Foundry relies on the continued generosity of individual and corporate partners to support its activities. If you would like to have a conversation about becoming a supporter of the Oxford Foundry, we would love to hear from you.
Please contact
info@oxfordfoundry.co.uk
www.oxfordfoundry.ox.ac.uk
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THANK YOU TO OUR SUPPORTERS
SAID BUSINESS SCHOOL T H E A M E R S I F O U N D AT I O N EY M E LT W AT E R D E TA O E D U C AT I O N G R O U P B A R C L AY S REID HOFFMAN BRENT HOBERMAN BIZ STONE TOBY COPPEL PETE FLINT MOHAMED AMERSI ALEXSIS DE RAADT ST JAMES J O R N LY S E G G E N JEFF WONG PHIL LIBIN
@oxfoundry
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