Students at Leicester Castle Business School (LCBS) have been inspired to be more creative and braver with their ideas after visiting Boston, a city famed for its innovation.
The undergraduate and postgraduate students attended talks at prestigious educational institutes and met with entrepreneurs behind thriving independent businesses as part of their American experience.
Karina Mirgalimova, who is studying Business Management in the Creative Industries MSc, also made industry contacts.
She said: "The trip to Boston just changed my mind-set.
"I'm building my start-up and the knowledge and motivation that I got from other entrepreneurs, teachers and experts was very beneficial.
"I made valuable connections at networking events and pitched my ideas to potential partners."
Russian-born Karina was also impressed by the very different attitude to failure.
"In the US, if you fail you win," she said. "They call it 'acceptance of the failure', where every person has a right to make a mistake and the mistake is seen as a new opportunity rather than a tragedy."
The trip was organised through #DMUglobal - De Montfort University Leicester's (DMU) international experiences programme - and included talks at Boston and Harvard universities. Students also visited the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and independent businesses such as Follow the Honey.
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Global Leadership and Management BSc student Daniel Czyzak, from Poland, benefited from seeing innovation in practice - and will be adding the experience to his CV!
He said: "Boston is full of very career- and innovation-driven people and that motivates you. You start thinking about yourself and what you can do and how you can become a part of the community there.
"We've learned a lot about practices concerning business and innovation and we compared them to European standards.
"The highlight for me was a visit to MassChallenge - a global non-profit start-up accelerator and competition with a focus on high-impact, early-stage entrepreneurs.
"I think that the trip pushed me to be more creative and to be braver with my ideas."
LCBS Principal Professor Dana Brown co-led the trip with DMU's Innovation Centre Manager Simon Baines. She said: "This was the first LCBS trip with #DMUglobal and it provided students with an incredible opportunity to visit Harvard University, MIT and more.
"These events help to reinforce the global and innovative nature of the LCBS portfolio, allowing students the opportunity to discover and learn from real-world examples and experiences."
Mr Baines added: "The trip provided LCBS students with an incredible opportunity to visit one of the most thriving innovation ecosystems in the world.
"This is the first of many exciting international opportunities for entrepreneurial students."
Posted on Friday 28 April 2017