15/01/2025
You need the chance to put your skills to the test.
Our carefully curated International MBA stands out from the crowd thanks to its customizable nature. Putting you in charge of your academic path, this program allows for unique personalization to suit your career goals and interests. One of the standout features is the opportunity to join one of four immersive labs, where you’ll work on real-world projects to hone your business soft skills and put your newfound academic expertise in practice.
What are the Labs?
IE Business School’s International MBA labs are spaces where you develop professional projects and work closely with companies and institutions. International MBA participants can join one of these labs during the third term of their program. Providing internship-like experience in fully equipped facilities, they’re ideal for building business soft skills and testing your knowledge. Each lab lasts five weeks, and you can choose one of the following:
1. Startup Lab, where you can start up your own company in a group of three to five students. You’ll benefit from expert guidance from our faculty members and work with mentors from top companies. In the last two weeks, you will also have access to weekly investor pitches.
2. Tech Lab, where you’ll work on a current challenge from a big-name company such as IBM or Microsoft. In a group of five students, you’ll use your technical and creative skills to come up with several solutions.
3. Business Impact Lab, which is similar to the Tech Lab, but challenges are more strategic and relate to business areas of the company. In the past, we’ve worked with multinationals, space and defense companies and many household names like Jonhson & Johnson, McDonalds, Heinekn, Lego and Nissan.
4. Social Impact Lab, where you’ll work as a social development consultant with NGOs to help them define their needs and meet their goals and objectives.
Students will learn how to work in teams and rise to the challenge, whatever their given situation.
Introducing the Labs
Startup Lab
The Startup Lab is designed for passionate entrepreneurs ready to bring their ideas to life. And as entrepreneurship is one of IE Business School’s core values, around 70% of International MBA students choose this lab. Functioning as an incubator, you won’t receive formal teaching in this 150-participant lab. Instead, you’ll be developing your idea into a real business alongside like-minded thinkers.
Aside from developing business soft skills through our labs, many of our participants have gone on to develop their ideas into successful companies. Intrigued? Take a look at some of the startups born in our Labs!
Tech Lab
The Tech Lab is your opportunity to devise a business solution from a challenge faced by a selected company invited by IE Business School. In a previous edition, students worked with AWS and social benefit partner on various apps, including a menu-scanning option to help visually impaired people order food in restaurants.
This lab also includes an opening day with networking, tech deep dive sessions and a final integrative exercise where you can present your own project.
Business Impact Lab
The Business Impact Lab is designed to give you a 360° vision of business consulting. Partner companies from previous editions have included Nissan, McDonald’s, Heineken and Airbus. During the challenge, you’ll benefit from classes, company visits and sessions with guest speakers and experts on building business soft skills. Similar to our Tech Lab, past participants in the Business Impact Lab have been hired either as interns or full-time employees after this lab.
Social Impact Lab
In the Social Impact Lab, you’ll collaborate with an NGO, developing solutions on-site. Examples have included analyzing possibilities for developing microventures in Africa, developing an action plan to increase awareness of services for children in South Africa, and the design and implementation of an awareness campaign around the trafficking of women in Nepal. Interested in working with NGOs and making real social impactin business? This is the lab for you.
The combination these labs enhances the business soft skills that are necessary to thrive in any environment.
The International MBA: enhancing the business soft skills you need to thrive
As an ambitious mid-career professional, you know that to transform your career, you need to transform yourself. That’s why we’ve curated the International MBA with a holistic focus on you and your unique journey. We’ll help you identify your career path, boost your impact and hone your purpose.
