In January this year, students from St. Olaf College engaged in an enthusiastic design thinking exercise on the circular economy at a business incubator in Christchurch, New Zealand.
The discussion was led by a team of entrepreneurial experts who have helped launch 214 startups and raised more than $112 million in funding as they exchanged ideas on how to build a resilient economic system that is good for business, people and the environment.
The 23 St. Olaf College students were then given 30 minutes to write a business plan and pitch their idea to the group.
It was a powerful lesson in quickly developing, honing and pitching a startup idea, says Caleb Kestner ’24. And it was such a fun experience for him that he kept building on the idea he had in the moment, eventually pitching it at this year’s Ole Cup, a student startup competition on campus. He won first place and $10,000 with his pitch for Cinsault, a proactive plant-care system that uses data to simplify plant health and reduce waste.
“This was the best class that really taught me how to start a business,” says Kästner, noting that his hands-on learning experience in New Zealand helped him carve out a clear path for his future. “I've applied almost everything I learned after graduating from university as part of the process of going from idea generation to starting a company.”
“This was a great class to learn more about how to start a business.”
Caleb Kestner '24
That's exactly what Sian Christie, entrepreneur and dean of business and management at St. Olaf College, wants to see from her students. New Zealand Innovation course.
“Entrepreneurship is best taught through opportunities to do and learn from others,” she says. “Students often struggle with ambiguity and worry that there are no 'right' answers. This course strives to push students out of their comfort zones so they can thrive in an entirely different and unique environment.”
New Zealand is one of the most innovative countries in the world, according to a new study. Global Entrepreneurship Monitor Reports including New Zealand count 18% of the adult population as entrepreneurs, and in Christie's course students will learn about the ecosystem that supports growth and entrepreneurship and look at key aspects that drive innovation.
“The goal is for students to think about how they can bring this innovative thinking back to the United States and to their own hometowns,” Christie said.
That’s exactly what Tyler Rice (Class of 2017), a business administration and Nordic studies major with a minor in political science at St. Olaf College, did. New Zealand Innovation He took a course on digital wellness during his senior year of college. After graduating, he worked as a consultant for UnitedHealthcare before joining Stanford University's Ideas to Market Incubator, where he spent six months building a business case for digital wellness in both the workplace and schools. He later co-founded the Digital Wellness Institute and earned a master's degree from NYU's Wagner School of Public Service. Of these experiences, he says the St. Olaf course he took with Christie was the one that made the biggest impression on him.
“Going to New Zealand and studying innovation taught me as much in that class as I ever learned in a Stanford incubator or a graduate-level course at NYU,” Rice says. “It really prepared me to be an entrepreneur.”
student New Zealand Innovation The January term of the course involves a month of travelling around the country, from Dunedin to Auckland, and this year we visited three business incubators and heard from eight guest speakers with a wide range of expertise.
Andy Blackburn is the Digital and Innovation Manager at Ministry of Awesome, an incubator for fast-growing startups and innovators in Christchurch, who ran the design thinking exercise that the class participated in. This is his third year working at Ministry of Awesome. New Zealand Innovation He said he has enjoyed completing the course and watching St. Olaf students define and understand diverse problems and develop exciting, novel and relevant solutions.
“I was impressed with the students' capabilities and their eagerness to innovate and learn with energy and enthusiasm,” he says. “As a result, the presentations were great fun and some real opportunities emerged.”
“Entrepreneurship is best taught through opportunities to do and learn from others. Students often struggle with ambiguity and worry that there are no 'right' answers. This course strives to get students out of their comfort zones and challenge them in an entirely different and unique environment.”
Dean of the Graduate School of Business and Management Sian Christie
As they travelled around the country, the students visited sites that provided an opportunity to explore and discuss many of the country's key economic drivers, from tourism and the film industry to agriculture and technology. The students also learned how important and significant Māori culture and traditions are to the country's overall culture. They heard from Indigenous entrepreneurs and visited significant cultural sites and areas. Christie noted that Kaikoura and Rotorua in particular have iwi (tribal nation)-run businesses that explain and celebrate Māori traditions.
The course culminated with a “hackathon,” in which students formed teams and had 24 hours to come up with new business ventures. Jean-Luc Collette ’25, Anna Grace ’26, and Joshua Sansom ’25 brought their ideas back to campus to present at this year’s Ole Cup.
The New Zealand experience was a perfect fit for Fiona Boskovic, 25, a computer science major focusing on business and management. She has worked at Microsoft for three years as a technical program manager intern in AzureML, its cloud and AI division, and plans to continue working in the company's AI services after graduation.
“I recently switched from software engineering to technical program management. My coursework in New Zealand taught me a lot about innovation, including generating unique product ideas and pitching them to others. I really enjoyed the whole process of this job, which gave me confidence that I made the right decision with my career shift,” says Boškovic.
Jules Fromm ’25, a biology and environmental studies major, said the class pushed her to use different skills and ways of thinking.
“I learned a lot about networking and communication skills and honed my ability to simplify complex ideas,” she says. Though she's not sure if she'll become an entrepreneur, she knows the core content she learned from the course is applicable to a wide range of fields, including a career in science. “The class was a great experience,” she says.
St. Olaf's courses support entrepreneurship
Oles can take classes in a variety of areas that will help hone his entrepreneurial skills, including:
ID 229: Arts Management
Bus 210: Organizational Storytelling
Bus 237: Management Accounting
Bus 250: marketing
Bus 251: management
Bus 252: Legal aspects of business
Bus 260: New Zealand Innovation (study abroad)
Bus 268: Design Thinking and Entrepreneurship
Bus 281: Corporate Finance
Bus 383: Management Policy and Strategy
Economics 245: Healthcare Economics
CSCI 241: Hardware Design
CSCI 251: Software Design and Implementation
CSCI 263: Ethical Issues in Software Design
CSCI 284: Mobile Computing Systems
Physics 160: Engineering Design
Art 228: Animation art
ENGL 285: Digital Rhetoric and New Media Literacy
ENGL 287: Professional and Business Writing
ENGL 289: Journalism Writing
ENGL 290: Exploring Literary Publishing
ENGL 291: Intermediate Creative Nonfiction Writing
ENGL 296: Screenplay
ENGL 373: Advanced Creative Nonfiction Writing Workshop
