Anglia Ruskin University student Chris Mitchell is one of two fortunate Cambridge-based students who have set off to the States for six months as part of an entrepreneurial scholarship programme. Both students will participate in the scheme, designed by the National Council for Graduate Entrepreneurship (NCGE) and Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation (a leading US centre that works to advance entrepreneurship). The programme is for just 16 individuals who have been selected from the best of England and Northern Ireland's engineering, scientific and technology degree and post doctorate students.

Launched by the Government in the Budget last year, the programme will enable the students to develop their high impact business ideas during their stay in the United States and combine both practical and educational learning through coaching from leading scholars and thinkers, policy leaders, innovative researchers, and business founders and placements at a US business, university and the Kauffman Foundation.

The Fellows will begin their programme in the US this week with a welcome tour and introduction to the Kauffman Foundation, Kansas, where they will spend the first five weeks meeting and working with their US mentors and experts in the field of entrepreneurship. Fellows will then visit US universities, including Harvard, before they take up a three month internship at a US business. They will return to the Kauffman Foundation at the end of the six months to share and consolidate their experiences before returning to the UK.

During the scholarship the Fellows will work on their individual business concepts, which range from addressing environmental and health issues to designing new luxury technology goods and a new application for mobile phones.

Chris, a PhD student at Anglia Ruskin, is hoping to take advantage of the rapidly expanding market for music online, and is developing a music information server for which he already has a prototype. His server will allow music to be sorted by similar sound and genre.