Norwegian Entrepreneurs Come to Questrom
Congrats to our Norwegian students for their hard work this summer at BU. And, thanks to BU Today for its coverage. Here is a quick abstract:
Norwegian graduate students Nicoline Bergh and Bendik Fon recently arrived for an interview at the Questrom Starbucks with a third party: the small wheeled contraption that brought them—figuratively, not literally—to BU for the summer.
The Exero Spike is a mobility device, essentially a wheeled sled that makes it possible for disabled athletes, primarily cross-country skiers, to work out safely on dry ground and rough terrain. The students, here for a 10-week summer program in entrepreneurship, developed the Exero Spike with advice from para athletes, researchers, and the Norwegian Institute of Sports, focusing mainly on users with spinal cord injuries or amputations.
“We see it as a product that can erase the difference between me or you and people who are in a wheelchair,” says Bergh. “You can have this cool product and go off with your buddy and [your disability]doesn’t matter anymore.”
Bergh and Fon are two members of a five-person start-up, Exero Technologies. Along with a third member, Solveig Christensen, they’ve come to Boston as part of the 17-year-old Norway Entrepreneurship Program at the Questrom School of Business.
“It was a unique chance to get to Boston and learn entrepreneurship and meet another culture, and get feedback on the prototype,” says Fon.
It’s also an opportunity for the students to improve their skills in presenting their product: “Pitching is something that is really a specialty here at BU,” Bergh says.
Questrom is one of several schools that participate in the Norwegian government–run program, known as the Norwegian School of Entrepreneurship (“Gründerskolen”) and administered by the University of Oslo. Founded in 1999, this year it sent a total of about 150 students to Questrom, Rice University, the University of California Berkeley, the National University of Singapore, and the University of Toronto.
