The trick when it comes to engaging people in a project is to find something they can relate to. So asking students what is wrong with their backpack is a simple but effective way to catch their attention.

It served as the perfect way to help them, over a period of five to six hours each, to use creativity and then innovation to come up with a solution – a better backpack – a skill that Microsoft believes will be fundamental to their future success.

The project is part of a comprehensive workbook handed out to over 250 students, ranging from children to adults, who attended a pilot project at the Microsoft Innovation Centre at Skyparks.

The project was entrusted to MIC Malta, one of 120 centres around the world, by the global company’s head office, something that MIC Malta’s business development manager, Edward Portelli, is clearly proud of.

Microsoft Corp. believes very strongly in the synergy between entrepreneurship and IT. It partnered with the University of Stamford and its entrepreneurship guru Tina Seelig to come up with a curriculum that they will offer across the globe. The first step was to set up a pilot project to make sure that the language was right for a global audience, making it accessible to different cultures. Malta was chosen for its good mix of students and good ecosystem.

Many tweaks will be made but once the global curriculum is finalised, we hope to get a global licence to run the course on a regular basis

“And also the level of eagerness – which was quite evident from the forum!” Mr Portelli smiled.

“Prof. Seelig called every night from the US to see how her material was being used as she was very excited too.

“Many tweaks will be made but once the global curriculum is finalised, we hope to get a global licence to run the course on a regular basis.”

The centre was picked in no small part because of its achievements over the past three years, all aimed at boosting the concept and culture of entrepreneurship. Apart from offering office space for start-ups, over 400 events have been held there, from small internal meetings to large student events.

This has been possible, in no small part, to its ever-growing list of corporate partners, the Education Ministry, as well as educational institutions including the University of Malta.

The centre was one of the first incubation centres in Malta but Mr Portelli wanted it to extend its remit into the education space, getting students excited about technology and entrepreneurship.

“There is a lot happening in schools with new curricula and new ways of teaching and we want to align with that. We have a lot of events which help them understand what entrepreneurship is, what building a company means – especially if you come from the IT sector,” he said.

Until a few years ago, there was very little available to help start-ups besides Malta Enterprise’s Corradino Business Incubation Centre. Since then, the University launched its Take Off Incubation Centre and PwC came up with a ‘pro bono’ fund. Fortunately, the players aligned their resources and a forum was set up two years ago which still meets on a regular basis, identifying gaps in what Mr Portelli calls the ‘ecosystem’.

“We all set out to complement each other, rather than compete with each other. We support a number of start-ups from Take Off and regularly visit University to work with the start-ups there, helping them with technology, such as understanding the new business models that become possible with cloud computing.

“We organise events together, too, such as the annual hackathon organised by the ICT Students Association. It is a great collaboration and we are finding our key areas of complementarity. The University is also mapping the start-up scene through the forum, which will help to create more structure in future activities.”

Apart from the educational side, the centre is also very important as a base for start-ups – providing office space as well as IT resources. For example, the BizSpark programme gives them €60,000-€100,000 of Azure cloud computing services free of charge.

Around 80 start-ups have so far used it – ranging from someone wants to try out an idea to ones that are already scaling out and moving to bigger markets (see box, right) – although it is hard to assess how many of them will succeed: the failure rate for new companies is notoriously high, and it is even higher for technological companies, as much as 90 per cent according to some studies.

This means that having 10 companies that ‘graduated’ from the centre is already better than the odds. But Mr Portelli hates to think in terms of failure and success.

“There are so many different stages; it is too early to say if they will be successful or not. We have people who have been here for three years and who are still working, while with others you can tell even now that within six months, they will peter out.

“But one of the key benefits of being at the centre is that those that do not succeed still benefit from experience and gain expertise through the mentoring part of the programme.

“And it is easier for entrepreneurs to give their ideas a try as they do not have to invest as much upfront, thanks to the support they get from here. Some of them are very risk-averse and not willing to – or able – to give up their jobs to work full-time on their idea. The centre allows them to keep their options open!

“Even those who fail sometimes go away and come back with an innovative twist on their original idea. Unfortunately, failure is not in our culture as Maltese. It is so important to come up with ideas without fearing failure. You cannot make it unless you try. There is no guaranteed formula for success. Even planning is no guarantee as there are so many unknowns in innovative sectors where there is no tried and tested formula.”

As more and more start-ups come through the centre’s doors, Mr Portelli is already thinking about ways to capture all the lessons learnt from both the successful and unsuccessful companies.

“This could be something that we need to explore: getting them back to see what went wrong… Sometimes it is about stamina, they just give up too soon. Sometimes, they have a good idea but it is the wrong place or time. Or they position themselves wrongly in the market,” he mused.

“It depends on the character of the entrepreneur too.”

The start-up programme allows entrepreneurs to use the centre and resources for three years but they can extend their stay for another year if they are at a crucial point in scaling up. The centre can cater for 25 users at any one time, particularly since so many also work from home.

Apart from the educational side, the centre is also very important as a base for start-ups – providing office space as well as IT resources

The centre is also very active when it comes to corporate social responsibility, allowing NGOs to use the space for events, as well as donating thousands of euros of Microsoft software.

Free cloud services are offered to both students and lecturers, and there are also ‘camps’ to update post-secondary students with the latest in technology and entrepreneurship models.

Mr Portelli believes that instilling a culture of entrepreneurship underlies all that the centre does – but stresses that the aim is not necessarily to get people to start their own business.

“It is also about how you work within a company in an entrepreneurial way. It is about not simply waiting for instructions but about defining the problem and solving it, which our educational system is not designed to do.

“We define entrepreneurship as looking for a problem, defining it and finding a solution for it.”

The new regional manager for Malta, Panayiotis Ioannou, is also thrilled with the outcome of the pilot.

“It will have a great impact on our visibility here. It is testimony to the work done hereover the years and it shows that Microsoft Corporation is aware of this! We have already been proposed for another project,” he smiled.