Aberdeen University Offers Software Entrepreneurship Programme

Guest editorial from Dr Bruce Scharlau, University of Aberdeen…

Games developers wanting to start a games business should look at the MSc Software Entrepreneurship programme at the University of Aberdeen. The programme aims to have student teams launch businesses while studying for their degree. Any IP the students create belongs to them and their team. This is a year of learning the games business while developing a games business. This is a year of developing your business within the safety net of the university environment. Here you can try one idea after another, and leave with a degree. We are here to help you grow yourself and your abilities in an incubator-like environment.

This MSc Software Entrepreneurship programme focuses on building software businesses, which could include anything from business applications to games businesses. The goal of the ideation phase of the programme is a starting point for developing a sustainable businesses model so you’ll be encouraged to think beyond the first game idea to what follows in the future. The goal for each team is developing a sustainable software business. The business ideas could be for software based tools, games, or services.

You will be guided by staff and mentors in the development of the business idea to learn what you need to know to develop your game business. Your learning therefore is as much about the finer points of games tools as it is about lean startup tools, and agile development. We want you to know you are building the right features, in the right way, for the right customers. You will be guided to understand your customers and their issues so that this helps you build a better player experience, and therefore a better business. We want you to leave knowing how to develop the business and future games, as well as the current game you’re developing.

Our MSc Software Entrepreneurship degree offers you the opportunity to develop a number of personal skills, while pursuing the real possibility of developing a startup business. This could be a year to change your career, or even your life in exchange for a year of your time. These are possible options. You take the programme, and have the option to pursue the business ideas you work on during the year. You can walk away with an MSc knowing that you are a different person now with more skills and a different mindset from the person who started the programme. You could successfully walk into any number of jobs after taking this programme.

You can find out more about the degree from its official page at:

http://www.abdn.ac.uk/study/courses/postgraduate/taught/software-entrepreneur

And from its WordPress site at:

http://startupsexplained.com/ where you will find links to the course’s Twitter and Facebook profiles.