arvard Business School undeniably ranks among the world's top Ivy League management institutions. However, one person who passed through its hallowed halls stresses in his talk "What You Did Not Learn at Harvard Business School," that it takes more than a formal education to set up a business. INNOVATION's Tan Lay Leng finds out more.

Professor John Doggett, a Professor of International Management and Entrepreneurship at the McCombs School of Business of the University of Texas at Austin, should know what it takes when it comes to being an entrepreneur. He has created two businesses and serves as an adviser to three Internet companies. His extensive experience in consulting brings him up close and personal with companies of all sizes, including Fortune 500 corporations, and governments around the world. He somehow still finds time to teach subjects such as technopreneurship and venture development under the Executive MBA Program offered by the Helsinki School of Economics in Singapore. MBA students have voted him a top business school teacher at the University of Texas for every edition of Business Week magazine's "Best Business Schools" since 1995.

The Yale Law School graduate decided to go into business to create wealth for himself and other people after seeing the adverse effects of poverty. When representing impoverished clients driven to desperation because of unemployment, he was moved by their plights and their simple wishes just to get jobs, any jobs. He resolved to set up a company that could provide jobs; and to prepare himself, he enrolled in Harvard to pursue an MBA and proceeded to realise his dream.

Can entrepreneurship be taught?

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