Entrepreneurial Competencies for Landscape Restoration (Coursera)

Entrepreneurial Competencies for Landscape Restoration (Coursera)

In this course, we will help you to become an entrepreneurial professional by developing and cultivating an entrepreneurial mindset yourself.

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Welcome!
Dear learner,
Since 2013, Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus University (RSM) and Commonland have collaborated in developing joint education to address the vital importance of healthy ecosystems and landscapes for business and to explore the contribution business and management thinking can bring to large-scale landscape restoration. RSM and Commonland established the European Network for the Advancement of Business and Landscape Education (ENABLE) and the ENABLE partnership applied successfully to the EU-funded ERASMUS+ program. Within ENABLE we developed and delivered 2 MOOCs on the Coursera platform between September 2016 and September 2019:
• A Business Approach to Sustainable Landscape Restoration
• Business Model Innovation for Sustainable Landscape Restoration
Although the ENABLE partnership formally ended in 2019, RSM and Commonland continued to develop ways to jointly reach students and professionals who can connect the dots within a landscape approach between:

  • ecological/natural ecosystems
  • entrepreneurial/business ecosystems
  • financial/investment ecosystems
  • soci(et)al ecosystems

We call these professionals Chief Ecosystem Orchestrators, or “CEO4.0”, referring to their orchestrating role within and between these different types of ecosystems as part of a broader landscape context. Also CEO4.0 links with the “next level” CEO and with the 4 Returns approach developed and applied by Commonland. Key focus of the CEO4.0 will be to enable and facilitate business model innovation and multiple value creation within a landscape approach, aligning and integrating the objectives and interests of all stakeholders (including the natural world) at landscape level while dealing with complexity of breaking through silos of systems, sectors and scales.
The CEO4.0 is characterized by an entrepreneurial mindset and this course helps you to develop and cultivate the entrepreneurial competencies you need within the challenging context of integrated landscape management and holistic landscape restoration with a business approach. As such, we are happy to launch this course as the first formal building block of the CEO4.0 curriculum, leading the way to societal and business resilience with lower risks and higher (long-term and multiple) returns.
This course is for you if:
You are a (start-up) entrepreneur or an intrapreneur already, or work in the entrepreneurial ecosystem, for example as a policy maker or impact investor
You are already involved in a landscape initiative,

  • and you want to learn how to work in a more entrepreneurial way;
  • become an entrepreneurial professional regardless of your background as a landscape practitioner;
  • and/or you want to focus on interventions that create value for a felt need within the landscape(s) you are working in or have impact on.

Happy learning,

What you'll learn

  • How to grow Entrepreneurial competencies and an entrepreneurial mindset
  • How to fill in and apply a 4 returns landscape business model canvas

Syllabus

Introduction to landscape restoration
In this week, we will present the basic concept and set the scene of the importance of large-scale, sustainable landscape restoration.

Entrepreneurial mindset
In this week, we will elaborate on the benefits of an entrepreneurial mindset and entrepreurial competencies.

4 Returns Landscape Business Model Canvas
What makes a great idea? We will discuss 4 elements that make a great idea and a useful tool to map your business model.

Business model discovery
In this week, we discuss 4 essential principles that guide the business model discovery process, which are based on effectuation theory.

Problem discovery and validation – part 1
In this week you will explore the desirability of your idea. We start with problem discovery.

Problem discovery and validation – part 2
In this week, you will continue to explore the desirability of your idea by taking the ecosystem and a broader set of stakeholders into account.

Solution development and validation
In this week, you will learn how to develop and validate solutions, and how to test and validate your ideas.

Investment readiness level - business view (bonus week)
in this bonus week, we will introduce Investment readiness from a business perspective.

Investment readiness level - landscape view (Bonus week)
In this bonus week, we will look at investment readiness from an ecosystem or landscape perspective.

Go to Class
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