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Director of the Centre for Entrepreneurial Learning, Judge Business School, University of Cambridge

Shai is Director for the Centre for Entrepreneurial Learning (CfEL), part of University of Cambridge Judge Business School and Director of the MoTI (Management of Technology and Innovation) Programme. He started his working career in small companies, leaving to complete his MBA and PhD at Cranfield School of Management, where he stayed on the faculty for ten years, before taking up a Chair in Enterprise at Nottingham Business School. Since 2001, Shai has been closely involved in building the curriculum for a practitioner-led approach to education for entrepreneurship at the University of Cambridge.

Together with a core team of staff, researchers, an established pool of Entrepreneurs in Residence and a wider community of practitioners, the Centre for Entrepreneurial Learning (CfEL) provides a portfolio of programmes and activities that encourage, inform and support students at the University and elsewhere to take a learning journey through entrepreneurship. Several of the courses have been copied, transplanted or redeveloped in context. In 2011, the Centre ran the first Postgraduate Diploma in Entrepreneurship programme which is accredited by the University of Cambridge.

Shai has published five books and several papers on entrepreneurship, most recent of which is“UnlockingtheEnterpriseWithin“co-authoredwithNealHartmanfromMIT .Hiscurrent research includes work on social capital, entrepreneurial learning, opportunity recognition and risk taking and decision making, e.g. ‘The Innovative Brain’ with Prof Barbara Sahakian, Nature, Nov 2008. He co-authored a World Economic Forum report published in 2009 entitled 'Educating the Next Wave of Entrepreneurs' with specific responsibility for the chapter on Social Inclusion.

He is Senior Member at both Darwin College and Wolfson College at the University of Cambridge, UK. Shai is currently a Chartered Member of The Indus Entrepreneurs (TiE) ,a Fellow of the Royal Society for the encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce (RSA) and a member of the European Academy of Sciences and Law.

Shai has combined academic and business interests having co-founded several businesses. Presently, he is Director of AcceleratorIndia – founded to transfer innovations, technology and know-how between the UK and India.