Berklee/Brown Creative Entrepreneurship Summer Program

We are looking for ambitious young innovators and entrepreneurs from all parts of the globe who are ready to be pioneers, leaders, and change-makers. If you love making art or being creative, are naturally curious and a great listener, like to question the status quo, work well with diverse groups of people (or want to learn how to do that), and enjoy combining disciplines in new ways, then this is the program for you. You must be fluent in English. You don’t have to be a performer or an artist, but you'll work closely with creators as well as entrepreneurs, faculty at both schools, and other leading experts and educators in the fields of design and creativity.

1. A complete application form, including a short essay of 1,500 characters of less, responding to the following two questions: What do you hope to learn about creative entrepreneurship? What concrete skills, attitudes, or knowledge will you contribute to this program? Applicants may also provide up to three links to relevant websites, products, services or other examples of entrepreneurial or leadership projects in which you’ve played a major role.
2. An academic transcript that contains grades for the most recent academic term, and at least two previous academic years. Transcript submissions must include an explanation of the scoring system in English. 
3. A passport-style photo ID, demographic details, and an optional scholarship application.
4. English-as-a-second-language students will also be required to submit a English Language Proficiency Assessment Form from an English language teacher and return it via email to bbcesp@berklee.edu. 

Note that in some cases, additional application materials may be requested. 

Note: The application for this program is currently closed. Registration for 2019 will be available soon.  

Deadline: Applicants are admitted on a rolling basis. The deadline to apply is May 14, 2018; however, the program may fill up before that deadline, so students are encouraged to apply early.  

Notification of Admission Decision: Applicants will be notified of the admission decision within one week after submission of a complete application. Incomplete applications will not be reviewed by the review committee.

Confirming Attendance with a Program Deposit: Accepted students must confirm their attendance by submitting a program deposit. More details will be provided upon acceptance.

This program is a unique partnership between a college of contemporary music and performing arts and an Ivy League University. Students will receive a joint certificate from BerkleeICE and the Brown University Pre-College Programs. Most importantly, you will have the opportunity to permanently shift how you see yourself, to learn what it means to think like an entrepreneur, and to carry with you a lifelong ability to solve problems, analyze issues, and collaborate with others using your inherent creativity. See an example of one of the final presentations here.

Core principles of this program include the following:

• Good listening and observation skills are central to both artists and successful innovators.
• Arts ensembles are environments for learning how to collaborate.
• Improvisation acts are analogous to the nimble instincts and experimentation of successful entrepreneurs.
• The recording process is a metaphor for synthesizing disparate parts into a comprehensive plan.
• Songwriting is used as a means of introducing the iterative and cocreation process that all ideas and products undergo, from concept to launch.

The program will include a week with the Brown University Pre-College Program on the Brown University campus in Providence, Rhode Island,  and a week with BerkleeICE on Berklee's Boston, Massachusetts, campus. The program will culminate on the Berklee campus, with student teams pitching their final projects to a panel of top musicians, entrepreneurs, and community leaders.

View the Creative Entrepreneurship 2017 Summer Program brochure to see the program schedule, presenters and learn more about the curriculum. Throughout the 13 days, you and your student team will work together to design a hands-on project, using entrepreneurial strategies to devise creative solutions to community and social issues. 

• At Brown, you will learn the fundamentals of presentation, storytelling, and narrative through lectures and workshops with Brown faculty and staff. Site visits to creative communities and class visits by designers and artists round-out the week. Outside of program time, Brown's Pre-College Programs offer a wide variety of extracurricular activities including yoga, art, sports, preparing for the college admissions process, and discussions about identity.

• At Berklee, you will immerse yourself in the startup and musician mindset through daily seminars with world-renowned music professionals, innovators, and entrepreneurs from the fields of technology, business, and art. You’ll be in recording studios and ensemble rooms, on concert stages, and in other environments that will demonstrate how the work of artists and creatives provides a model for entrepreneurs. Instruction will be enhanced by hands-on activities and visits to Boston-area innovation labs and organizations such as global design firm IDEO and the Museum of Fine Arts.

Still have questions? Email the BerkleeICE team or visit precollege.brown.edu/contact-us/ for more information.

The Creative Entrepreneurship Summer Program instructors include the following:

• Panos Panay, Vice President for Innovation and Strategy at Berklee, and Founder of Sonicbids

• Ian Alden Russell, Curator of Brown University's David Winton Bell Gallery

• Nicole d’Avis, Director of Operations and Programs, BerkleeICE

• Rob Jaczko, Chair of the Music Production and Engineering Department

• Melissa Ferrick, Associate Professor of Songwriting

• George Howard, Music Industry Entrepreneur

• Aithan Shapira, Artist and Massachusetts Institute of Technology Lecturer

• Johannes Flecker, Innovator and Founder of Sound Leadership

• Michael Hendrix, IDEO Partner

Instructors subject to change.