Business Kitchen

Last Monday our mentoring sessions led us to the Oulu Business Kitchen. In summary, the Business Kitchen is a place for entrepreneurial collaboration, where individuals with business ideas are able to find the means to develop their ideas. Even if you don’t have any business experience (yours truly), the business kitchen provides the resources and the networking to learn such skills. I had previously been made aware of this organization but to be honest I was mystified by it and largely intimidated due to the fact of my ignorance of that field and they seemingly hostility present between the education world and the business world. However, after my experience today I have seen how the Oulu Business Kitchen provides a platform for innovation that can improve education goals (among others) in the context of entrepreneurship.  In the following school year, I will definitely consider the Business Kitchen as a way of complementing my studies here in Oulu.

After the two presentations by the Business Kitchen representatives my mentoring group got together to solidify and conclude any thoughts or feelings way may have. Two take home messages arose. The first being was of personal note, where three of the Mentors shared their previous experience with the Business kitchen. All three had very positive things to say and explained how their roles in this enviornment pushed them out of their comfort zone and allowed them to experience new personal growth. The second message was more theoretical and incorporated the idea of collaboration and how it takes a leading role in both education and business. It can act is a bridge between this often competing roles, bringing people together to expand on ideas and there by improving the respective contexts.