Imperial Dean: New Campus Will Be 'Living Lab' for Tech and Entrepreneurship

By Niamh Ollerton Updated Dec 06, 2019

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Introduction
Tech in graduate education
Imperial’s long-term objectives

Imperial Business School by Mattbuck via Wikimedia Commons

Imperial Business School champions innovation throughout its teaching. The school’s ethos, programs and research all have a firm focus on how staying ahead of the curve by disrupting and innovating in the field of education can greatly benefit their students.

Around seven years ago, the school started making significant investments in digital, leveraging it for business education. Technology has been used by the business school and its EdTech lab for everything from using VR in student presentations, to using analytics to understand how knowledge is acquired by each student and how that relates to their success in class.

Arguably the pinnacle was becoming the first-ever school to hold a live holographic event, with experts and professionals beaming in from around the world.

Next year, Imperial Business School will take their evolution one step further by opening a new campus at White City, London, described as being at the cutting-edge of tech and entrepreneurship.

Dean of Imperial Business School, Francisco Veloso said: “It’s all about innovation, entrepreneurship, engagement. We’re building a huge entrepreneurial community.

“Part of our aspiration is to use White City as a living lab for leveraging technology and entrepreneurship for the benefit of business and society, and engaging with the start-ups and firms located there and working together closely to learn, experiment and to try.”

Veloso also notes this development enables collaboration throughout the college. He said: “An amazing opportunity from being part of this outstanding university is you’re able to leverage the new technologies coming online across all areas from clean tech to health, and really be a part of that development.”

Tech in graduate education

As a leading STEM-focused university, Imperial is ideally placed to combine technology with a traditional business education.

“If we’re thinking about preparing people to be leaders in business, tech is at the heart of it,” said Veloso.

“If you think of the way you deliver this education, there are huge opportunities to bring tech into it. Certainly for us, that has been essential.

“That has been the basis for us to start offering online degrees, and this is something we’re seeing all around the world.

“It’s not only relevant as a subject matter to prepare students for the future, but also relevant for what business schools do on how they organize their degrees, their education, their offerings in many different ways.”

Imperial’s long-term objectives

When thinking of the future of Imperial, Veloso admitted the aspiration is to be recognized as a leading school around the world.

“It’s important for us to be a business school that really leverages technology and entrepreneurship for the benefit of business and society.”

“There is a growing understanding, certainly at our business school, that thinking of how you can make a difference in the world is very critical.

“It can be on this notion of bringing finance into climate change, or bringing tech into social purposes, or data into African development. These are very important opportunities and needs of the world that our business school can really contribute.”

“All of these things are critical for today’s and tomorrow’s society and we really want to build a school that is known for being an active contributor to these social and sustainable goals.

“There are amazing opportunities to do so and that’s why it’s at the heart of what our objectives for the business school are.”

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Written by

Niamh Ollerton

Niamh was Deputy Head of Content at QS (TopMBA.com; topuniversities.com), creating and editing content for an international student audience. Having gained her journalism qualification at the Press Association, London and since written for different international publications, she's now enjoying telling the stories of students, alumni, faculty, entrepreneurs and organizations from across the globe.