It is now standard for business schools to include action-based learning projects—projects that address live problems of companies—in their core offering. As this trend continues, it creates unusual opportunities to simultaneously improve education and reach some business objectives that might otherwise be unattainable in a traditional classroom setting or with current experiential learning offerings.
This profile examines a newly formed US-based non-profit, Michigan Academy for Developing Entrepreneurs (MADE), designed to provide a vehicle for such education. It also evaluates the potential for that education conducted within MADE to create value for “on the ground” international Enterprise Development Organizations (EDOs) which provide training and consulting services to small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs).