Ducere School of Leadership: Fostering innovation via the MBA program

Entrepreneurs are regarded as being the backbone of economies worldwide. The new course introduced by the DucereSchool of Leadership aims to foster innovation amongst them.

The University of Mauritius, in collaboration with the Ducere School of Leadership, Australia has introduced the MBA, Innovation & Leadership in a bid to encourage entrepreneurship and innovation. While on visit in Mauritius recently to promote this course, Ducere Chancellor and former Austra-lian Prime Minister, Julia Gillard, spoke to Business Magazine about her involvement within Ducere and the importance of innovation. Ducere has an exciting vision of an innovative education company supporting philanthropy in Africa, with important work carried out on the continent regarding children’s literacy. “I thought it was an exciting opportunity and decided to get involved,” she said.

Questioned on the course content of the MBA Innovation and Leadership and its attraction for women, Julia Gillard replied that Ducere tries to ensure gender balance in its cour-ses. “We have got as many women studying as men. But when we actually look more broadly, we tend to see that business faculties often disproportionately preserve men, even though women are often the ones who are thinking business opportunities,” she observed.

From a development point of view, pursued Julia Gillard, there is a lot of focus going on fostering entrepreneurship and making sure that women have access to finance. That is the right development agenda and Ducere tries to ensure its courses’ agenda are balanced in order to advocate for more women to take on the path of entrepreneurship.

Strong market for MBA

Ducere is already present in 14 African countries, where philanthropic and academic work is being carried out. For Mat Jacobson, Ducere Chief Executive Officer, the opportunities on the Mauritian market are significant. There is a very strong domestic market for entrepreneurship and MBA, and greater opportunities to partner much more significantly with the University of Mauritius and expand Ducere’s program, he said.

“There is an even bigger opportunity to build an export market for education similar to what we have in Australia. The third biggest export economy over there is education and Mauritius doesn’t have a well-developed export market for this. We believe there is strong potential here,” he stated.

Regarding how the program helps build on problem-solving skills or addressing challenges such as the lack of access for credit for entrepreneurs, Mat Jacobson states that finance is just one of many examples of issues that need to be addressed. Entrepreneurs, he said, often complain that it is hard to access capital while investors and private equity firms state that good deals are scarce in spite of having money to invest. The problem thus is not about capital but rather about building a tangible and viable business.

“The social media fantasy about entrepreneurship is that three persons can sit down and scribble on the back of a napkin great ideas which will make a bank want to give them millions of dollars. You need to actually build a realistic business with customers and revenue and the competitive advantage and then you won’t have problem sourcing funding,” suggested Mat Jacobson.