While many students attend business school to access new job opportunities, others use the same space as an accelerator for entrepreneurship. Campus life provides them room to grow their business acumen, network with founders, and build confidence in their ideas.

This was the case for Hamel, Salma, and Carolanne—three young entrepreneurs who brought developing projects into the MSc in Global Innovation and Entrepreneurship at emlyon business school and found an environment that gave them the direction to further build those ideas.

Here’s what business school has meant for their growth as founders.

How does a master’s in entrepreneurship build confidence in early-stage founders?

Hamel Macky Gassama has been running businesses since he was 15 years old. Growing up between Senegal and France, he launched a luxury at-home car wash service as a teenager, followed by a concierge and personal shopping business that now serves clients in Paris and West Africa.

His latest venture is a charitable organization, Endaam Education, which supports rural education in Senegal, helping more than 1,000 children this summer alone. Yet when he started working on the foundation, he realized he needed to grow his skillset.

“I was doing it all by myself, so I knew that the Master’s in Global Innovation and Entrepreneurship would give me the skills to do better and way bigger than what I have done,” he says.

Just two months into the program, Hamel says the biggest shift he has experienced so far has been in his mindset.

“What I have really learned during these two months is that nothing is impossible in life,” he says.

Speaking with professors who bring experience from different countries and careers has transformed how he views his own potential. Program director and professor Rickie Moore says the program is designed to give students the environment and resources to build viable ventures, which Hamel recognizes.

“They’re not here just to grade us. They want us to understand the process of entrepreneurship. That helped me a lot,” says Hamel.

He has also noticed rapid progress in his communication and English language skills—capabilities he says are essential for the global path he is building. As part of the program, he will relocate with his classmates to Finland in January, followed by three months in Vietnam. The 18-month program at emlyon also includes a four-to-six-month internship period, for which Hamel hopes to head to the US to gain experience in tech. He then plans to return to Dakar to grow his foundation. The program’s international exposure, combined with hands-on projects and visits to local incubators, has already reinforced his entrepreneurial confidence.

“I want to open my mind as much as I can. I know that I will only be 22 in Lyon once in my life, so I’m here to make the most out of this program and enjoy it to the fullest,” he says.

What business skills do technical founders gain from a master’s in entrepreneurship?

Salma Shaarawi is an Egyptian computer science graduate who joined the master’s at emlyon with a viable product but limited business knowledge.

During her undergraduate studies in the UAE, she co-created Eshara, an Arabic sign-language translation system that in 2024 won the James Dyson Award, which recognizes student innovation. The real hurdle came when she tried to turn the project into a viable business.

“I felt like creating a business model around my project was a huge undertaking, because I had very minimal business exposure. That’s why I decided to pursue a master’s,” she explains.

During her studies so far, Salma (pictured left) has been struck by the practical nature of the master’s in entrepreneurship at emlyon. After a theory-heavy bachelor’s program, she appreciates the focus on group work and the range of cultural perspectives in the classroom, which regularly challenges her thinking, she says.

“When I interact with people from different places, I really get to reflect on my opinions. I always have to keep myself accountable to make sure I’m not coming from a place of, ‘This is what I was taught, so it must be the only right answer.’”

Having started the program with the aim of strengthening her business acumen, Salma feels gaining these fundamentals has been particularly rewarding.

“A big struggle with my first business attempt was managing finances and projections and forecasts—I had zero knowledge. Now we’ve gotten really hands-on with finance, business planning, business models, and we’ve applied that knowledge over and over again until you know all of the intricate details of running a business,” she says.

Salma’s goal isn’t to jump straight into reviving Eshara once she graduates. Instead, she’s preparing herself to develop technology that creates a positive impact.

“Technology can change people’s lives, but only when done appropriately,” she says. “You can have an amazing product and still not reach the people you need to reach because you don’t know how to run a business.”

How does a master’s in entrepreneurship connect students to real startup ecosystems?

After finishing her business bachelor’s, Carolanne Dominjon (pictured right) joined the MSc in Global Innovation and Entrepreneurship with several ventures already behind her, from a photo studio in Hong Kong to a communications agency in France, plus a social-media management platform now close to its beta launch.

Alongside these projects, Carolanne has built a following on Instagram of over 20,000 followers by documenting her entrepreneurship journey. Despite her growing list of projects, she didn’t feel ready to go directly into full-time entrepreneurship.

“I really wanted to develop my business, so I wasn’t ready to go to market,” Carolanne explains. She saw the master’s as a way to strengthen her business foundations while continuing to build.

For Carolanne, the program’s strongest impact comes when it brings her into real entrepreneurial environments. She enjoyed a visit to H7, one of Lyon’s major startup incubators, and is looking forward to a class trip to Station F in Paris, the world’s largest startup campus.

“There are so many benefits to meeting people in real life—you can connect with them and ask questions directly. That’s actually what I love about entrepreneurship: the networking,” she says.

It aligns with what professor Rickie Moore describes as Lyon’s entrepreneurial DNA, strengthened by renowned accelerators, an industrial base, and easy links to major European hubs.

Carolanne sees the upcoming trips to Finland and Vietnam as an extension of that same experience, offering the chance to meet founders in new ecosystems and understand how people build companies in different global contexts. She later hopes to continue that exposure with a marketing internship in Shanghai.

Whether she continues developing her startup, grows her work as a content creator, or pursues something entirely different, much like Salma and Hamel, Carolanne wants to build something of her own.

“I’m not afraid of the future, what I know is I really want to build my own thing.”