So what do Bill Gates, Pierre Omidyar, Larry Ellison, and Steve Jobs all have in common? Yes, they are all billionaires. And yes, they're among the most famous and successful technology innovators of their generation.

What else? None of them have MBAs.

From this, one could conclude that it's possible to forgo two years of business school and six-figure tuition fees on your way to revolutionizing an industry. In fact, many entrepreneurs and innovators will tell you that their craft simply cannot be taught in a classroom.

Yet this is precisely what the MBA programme at Oxford College of Business (OCB) seems to be doing - offering an Innovative, strategic and leadership/ entrepreneurial MBA concentration. This is the reason why the 12 Month MBA offered in affiliation with the Australian Institute of Business Administration (AIBA) has achieved worldwide recognition, and regarded as the most popular MBA in the country today. After all, who wouldn't want to be part of the "next big thing?"

The most current and up-to-date MBA in country

The popularity of strategic management as a field comes from the mythos (and wealth) created by the likes of Gates, Warren Buffet and others who elbowed their ideas into the marketplace. But the first lesson in some of these ideas is that - even great ideas - play a relatively small role in successful management and entrepreneurship.

"There's an assumption that the idea phase is about brainstorming lots of ideas, and then critically evaluating these ideas to get 'the good one,'" says Gates. "That's a lay assumption, it has a partial truth, but it's more false than true. Every idea has some piece of it that might be brilliant, but it's unrefined, and has a long way to go."

Learning to take an unrefined good idea, and turn it into a product that resonates in the marketplace is what the MBA at OCB is all about. Apart from the core business skills taught, the AIBA-MBA also helps in teaching students to conduct in depth market research, recognize an idea's "deadly flaws," and then focus on the details that will make the product better.

Or as Bill Gates puts it, "turning a technological success into a commercial success."
The AIBA MBA is well designed and up to date that there are modules designed specifically for HR specialists, accountants, lawyers and software engineers who might be brilliant in their field, but have not had much training in business, marketing, and strategic thinking. OCB-AIBA MBA graduates are the most equipped in the country to deal with current business challenges.

All Students graduating with an OCB-AIBA MBA and returning back to their employer's would be well trained to: develop and launch a products, they would focus on venture capital and know how to raise money, focus on finding the value, putting it together, and making a compelling case to senior management so that they lead a venture up.

For students who actually do want to follow in the footsteps of the famous entrepreneurs, and start their own venture, how does the OCB-AIBA MBA help prepare them?

The conventional idea against MBA's probably twenty years ago was that you can't teach people how to start businesses, but maybe how to manage things that are up-and-running; it is definitely not the case now.

The OCB-AIBA MBA equip an aspiring entrepreneur with three main things. The first is the basic management skill set that almost all top MBA programmes in the world seeks to deliver. The second is a specialized set of courses that focus on strategic management, leadership, new product management, and teaching methods like case studies where students play the role of entrepreneurs in theoretical discussions, and get to "crash and burn a few companies before they actually get out there." A third important benefit of the 12Month MBA at OCB, is that entrepreneurship-focused activities and events give students the opportunity to rub elbows with people who have done this, or folks out there who invest in companies.

Most popular MBA in Sri Lanka

The 12 Month MBA offered by the Australian Institute of Business Administration (AIBA) in affiliation with Oxford College of Business is approved by University Grants Commission (UGC) and is the most popular MBA programme in the country today. The AIBA-MBA have been rated among the best in the world which is the main reason why the MBA programme offered by AIBA is popular with students worldwide The Australian Institute of Business Administration (AIBA) MBA is a four star Post graduate degree and recognized by authorities both locally and internationally:

• UGC (University Grants Commission)- National accreditation body
• IAU (International Association of Universities) -Worldwide accreditation body
• AQF (Australian Qualification Framework) - Australian accreditation body
• CRICOS (Commonwealth Register of Institutions and Courses for Overseas Students) -

Commonwealth/EU accreditation body

This is an honour shared by only a few of the world's elite business schools around the world.
While there is a place for rankings as a rough guide, MBA candidates should look far deeper at what a business school does before committing to applying there.

Therefore when students graduate with an AIBA MBA, they leave with an empowering troika: management skills, start-up skills, decision making & analytical thinking skills and most importantly a strong network of priceless business contacts. It's no guarantee that they will ever get those billions of Rupees, the private jet, or enshrined on the Mount Olympus of Entrepreneurship. However you will definitely be better prepared for those important board room meetings, coming up with the right business strategy, managing your team in the most effective manner, making the right decision about what stock to invest in, along with the other twists and turns of starting a business which might just end up making you the next Bill Gates!

For more information contact the Malindu Ranasinghe - 0714151547 or visit www.12monthmba.com.au