Engaging alumni as mentors
To secure a balanced and more unrestrained line of advice for graduate start-ups, an additional
voluntary basis of consultancy and mentoring can be initiated through use of TU Ilmenau
alumni. The will and urge to “give back” to the university (and society) from experienced
business people is a way to create relations and secure knowledge sharing that is not biased
by any organisation‟s or governmental point of view. Alumni could act as guest teachers
from time to time, present real-life experience and know-how at events arranged by auftakt,
and more importantly act as non-partial mentors and providers of one of the crucial aspects
within entrepreneurship support, namely the “know-who”-facet. Often the most valuable
support and advice an entrepreneur can receive is the knowledge of whom to go to in order
to gain further resources to develop the business. Therefore, the existing alumni initiative at TU Ilmenau should also include entrepreneurship support as an objective to engage (local)
businesses and industry to help future start-ups coming from the university.