ment process and often needed basic marketing principles, they have also learnt some basic HRM and people skills. IBL becomes as a platform where they have a great opportunity to test and develop further these skills in practice and real life at the same time exercise the entrepreneurship and learn to take the risks. Innovation and entrepreneurship, as well as many other skills such as teamwork and leadership is rather difficult to practice and develop solely in the class room. IBL as a lab now gives an opportunity to dive into the “testing” process without any fear.
with the aim to encourage entrepreneurship in European Arctic has become an annual event, where young students and aspiring entrepreneurs learn from the most encouraging success stories of Arctic entrepreneurship as well as have an opportunity to present own innovations, experiences and participate in an innovation workshop with multiple stakeholders. In practice this event was an innovation by itself created by the students ones they realized actual opportunities in the northern regions for entrepreneurship careers. (InnoBarentsLab 2016)
As a university educator for almost 15 years, I truly believe that young people have great inner potential for entrepreneurship and innovations. It is our task to unlock this potential and create an environment where young talents can flourish.
Another example is social innovation project initiated by international students, but carried out together with Finnish students – “Give Back to Finland” project has had already three editions: “Senior Citizens”, “Schools”, “Children” (Give Back to Finland 2016). Primary aim of the project is to promote social interaction between foreigners and locals in Finland and in particular in Finnish Lapland and encourage international students to integrate into Finnish society. The main idea of international students involved in the project was to show their willingness to give back to the community demonstrating their appreciation towards the Finnish society as well as sharing their own culture and meeting local people.
Often the fear to make a mistake and fail is a greatest barrier to all great entrepreneurial ideas and innovations. I have noticed this fear among young people – fear of an action that will result in failure, disappointment, frustration and judgment. Entrepreneurship and innovation is about overcoming that deepest fear, but it is possible only through an action, by getting out of own comfort zone – traditional class room. Business success is a result of lessons learnt from past failures. Therefore the lab becomes a safe place to fail. Not necessarily, all of IBL participants will become entrepreneurs, but certainly all of them will become more entrepreneurial, they gain the skill that will be needed in their life in any kind of endeavor. This unique opportunity of giving students a possibility to experience innovation and entrepreneurship outside traditional class-room setting has been great experience so far. Looking back what kind of projects and innovation exercise have taken place in past years, it is a long list of many interesting and educational entrepreneurship projects. Northern Stars seminar with the slogan “Strengthening the North – Let´s Stay Here” has been an initiative by the students of Innovative Business Service and it has become a brand - an international event
There are many other innovative project examples and business idea testing projects, just to name few examples: City bus map digitalization, Russian Restaurant in Rovaniemi, Meeting Minutes Transcribing technology development, Cross-Border business innovations, Arctic Cuisine Tourism project idea development, Northern Light Hunter project, Broken Repairing project, Bonum Education Recruiting Company, many product and service marketing campaign projects. In addition IBL students are actively involved in various regional and international activities, contributing with their innovation efforts. Recently students involved in IBL have been successfully assisting the organization of annual Arctic Business Forum hosted by Lapland Chamber of Commerce (InnoBarentsLab 2016). Four IBL students were invited to participate in Arctic Model Council with other 40 young leaders coming from 26 research institutions located across 14 countries, including 8 Arctic states to simulate as Arctic Council ministerial meeting (Arctic Encounter Paris 2015). Once again it demonstrates that being active and getting involved with various development and innovation projects opens the door of real life work and entrepreneurship experiences to many students already during their studies. Enhancing real life work and entrepreneurship competences Main aim of InnoBarentsLab is to function as a media and platform where students can advance their entrepreneurship and innovation competence outside traditional classroom setting. Entrepreneur-
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