Pro-Rector for Societal Impact and Collaboration, Carl Christian Thodesen, and Professor Chee Yeow Meng, Director of the Enterprise Academy and NUS Overseas Colleges, signed a Memorandum of Understanding on Friday, January 17th.
Rector Christen Krogh kicked off the meeting with a speech placing OsloMet within a historical context.
A world-leading university
The National University of Singapore (NUS) is one of Asia's premier universities, ranked 17th globally by Times Higher Education.
OsloMet already collaborates with NUS on health and health technology (ansatt.oslomet.no). Additionally, we have a Memorandum of Understanding with the Singapore Institute of Technology (ansatt.oslomet.no). This collaboration has grown organically over the years since the first agreement, encompassing scientific cooperation and participation in conferences in both Singapore and Oslo.
The new agreement aims to lay the groundwork for increased student exchange from OsloMet to Singapore, while also allowing students from NUS to take courses and subjects at OsloMet.
Entrepreneurship through exchange
Currently, exchanges from NUS primarily involve placements in companies and startups where NUS has established a presence.
In his speech, Professor Chee Yeow Meng emphasized entrepreneurship as a lifelong learning experience and explained how the program differs from traditional exchanges. Students are selected through interviews rather than academic performance.
The program emphasizes the motivation to go abroad, acquire skills like discipline, teamwork, and creativity from different cultures, and then bring those experiences back to Singapore.
NUS’s interest in strengthening its ties with OsloMet is seen as a natural progression in this ambition.
Global opportunities
"When NUS seeks to connect its students more closely with a university in Norway, we are proud that OsloMet is their preferred partner. This agreement also gives us the opportunity to explore exchange potential for our students at a top international university," says Carl Thodesen.
"We also see the potential for NUS to act as a bridge for our entrepreneurship students into Singapore’s innovation and entrepreneurship ecosystem. In a global market, the opportunities presented by this agreement are a real advantage," Thodesen concludes.
Presenting the ecosystem
As part of the session, guests from Singapore were introduced to OsloMet's ecosystem for innovation and entrepreneurship.
Tale Skjølsvik from the Faculty of Technology, Art, and Design and Ingvild Reymert from the School of Business presented the master’s program in entrepreneurship.
Henrik Mørk discussed SEFIO - the Student Entrepreneurship Fund (sefio.no). CEO Freyja Jørgensen described the startup incubator Gründergarasjen (grundergarasjen.no), while CEO Ida Laustsen from Punkt Oslo presented the development of an innovation district in the city center (punktoslo.no).
This text has been translated with the use of Sikt KI-chat. The text has been quality assured by OsloMet.
