24 EMBA and MBA students from RSM followed a one week full course at Alba called “Turning ideas into Business Models” conducted by Alexis Komselis, Alba Teaching Fellow and AHEAD – Alba Hub for Entrepreneurship Director.

They were one of the 9 RSM MBA and EMBA groups that travelled all over the world for their international field trip.  In this course in Athens students had the opportunity to work in teams and turn an entrepreneurial idea into a functional business model. Using tools like the lean startup methodology, the business model canvas and the minimum viable product, each team explored an idea relevant to the Greek market. The teams worked hard before flying to Greece, in order to explore the entrepreneurial opportunities that Greece offers and identify three relevant business ideas. On the first day of their visit they selected one idea that they worked on throughout the week. On the last day, each team pitched their startup idea to a panel of experts consisting of Stergios Anastasiadis from Genesis Ventures, Alexandra Choli from Epagon and  Michalis Boutaris from Athroa.

RSM students had the opportunity to meet several startups and organizations from the local startup ecosystem. In class visitors included startups Clio Muse Tours and bFlex, whose founders shared their story and helped students develop their ideas. Guest speakers from Action Finance Initiative, Investing for Purpose and Genesis Ventures had the opportunity to share insights about trends and early stage investments in the Greek market. The students also visited CapsuleT Accelerator, discussed with start-up companies, learnt the story of Vouryia, visited Ampelones Markou and the wine museum, harvested grapes, learnt how to cook must cookies, tasted wines etc. It is the 3^rd time that Rotterdam School of Management selects Alba to organize their international field trip in Athens.