The International Enterprise Educators Conference (IEEC) 2025, hosted this year at Manchester Metropolitan University, brought together educators, practitioners, and innovators from across the UK and beyond to explore fresh perspectives on enterprise and entrepreneurship education. This year theme was “Disruptions, Futures and Enterprise Education.”
The Manchester Unhackathon: unhack, unrush, unlearn
Responding to this year’s call for new approaches, Dr Ambarin Khan, Programme Lead for MSc Entrepreneurship and Innovation at the University of Salford, presented work on The Manchester Unhackathon, an experimental extra-curricular activity developed by enterprise educators across four Manchester universities. Piloted in March 2025 by the University of Manchester, University of Salford, Manchester Metropolitan University, and the Royal Northern College of Music, the event brought together 41 students to innovate within the ‘one-day’ extra-curricular activity space.
“Entrepreneurship is mostly framed as rapid scaling, tech driven disruption and maximising growth,” Ambarin explained. “Traditional formats such as business plan competitions and hackathons encourage competitive ‘heropreneurship’ narratives and superficial engagement. That’s what the literature calls ‘innovation theatre’ rather than deep thinking (Blank, 2019;Daniela Papi-Thornton, 2016).”
She argues that existing entrepreneurial practices within higher educational institutions, while contributing to innovations, can undervalue inclusivity and even be counterproductive when tackling complex social change, which requires a more collaborative, iterative and adaptive approach.
Unlike traditional challenges and hackathons, the Manchester Unhackathon focused on deep exploration of complex social and ecological challenges. The format emphasised non-competitive collaboration, systems thinking, and inclusive approaches to change.
“Our aim was to unhack, unrush and unlearn,” Ambarin added. “We wanted to create a space where students could engage deeply with complexity rather than race to a pitch.”
Recognition and next steps
The team’s paper “Unhackathon Experiment- Unhack, Unrush, Unlearn: Designing Non Competitive Learning for Complexity” was awarded Best in Track at IEEC 2025. While the award was a valuable recognition, the greater achievement was the conversations it sparked with colleagues equally committed to rethinking enterprise education.
Ambarin noted a growing movement to reframe entrepreneurship away from competition and spectacle, toward models that prioritise commons, design justice, care, community, and creativity. “Our Unhackathon is just one building block in that shift, but we are excited about the possibilities it opens.”