What has Stockholm ever done for us?

When the Sydney School of Entrepreneurship gets its first students in the second half of this year, there will be a new answer to the question (aside from IKEA, streaming service Spotify and screen siren Ingrid Bergman.)

It all started when the NSW chief scientist Mary O'Kane, in Stockholm on business, invited Nick Kaye, Australian and then-CEO of the highly regarded Stockholm School of Entrepreneurship, to give a breakfast seminar in Sydney.

You'd expect the head of an entrepreneurs' school to do a pretty good sell job. But Kaye must have been sensational, because now, 14 months later, Sydney is getting a Stockholm equivalent with $25 million from the state government and Kaye as the founding CEO.

This was a "dream scenario", says Kaye. He had "absolutely no thought" it might happen when he gave his breakfast talk. But now, "the eyes of the global entrepreneur community and startup community are on us".

Anthony Roberts, the then NSW industry minister, and John Barilaro, then minister for skills, were at the breakfast, recounts Professor O'Kane. "Everyone said, 'wouldn't it be great to do it here?'"

In 19 years the Stockholm school has graduated 13,000 students. One-third of them have launched their own startups. Three have reached values over $US500 million. The Sydney school aspires to match that success – and beat it. "That's his KPI," jokes Professor O'Kane. "We will send him right back if he doesn't do it."

"We've got 12 members. It's unprecedented on a global basis," says Kaye, referring to the 11 NSW universities as well as TAFE NSW who are partnering in the venture. "Stockholm only had five, so 12 is a world first," he says.

Sydney also plans for more students – at least 1000 a year, though "in fact I believe it will be more", says Kaye.

Video and virtual technologies will be used to bring students together across distances. It will be "curated serendipity", he says, so students from a range of backgrounds, disciplines, and places get experiences and interactions the individual institutions can't provide. In classes, "we'll see doctors sitting next to designers, viticulturalists, technologists, business students ..."

Lucy Hamblin, 22, and Rose Hartley, 21, psychology students from Sydney University, intend to sign up. Last year they started Project Huni to ease the transition for high school students to university. They do workshops in high schools and offer a tool which helps students choose the best courses according to their interests rather than their ATAR, all the while building a networked community of ready-made mates for first year students, says Hamblin. In six months they've gathered 1600 students; they plan for 6000 by the end of the year.

"With the two of us not having any business background, being surrounded by people who can teach us those skills is so important," says Hamblin.

"We have the big dream but we need the insider knowledge," she says.

Stockholm is ranked number two in the world for successful tech startups, behind Silicon Valley. Innovation is a key factor in higher productivity to boost living standards, says Professor O'Kane. "Our wellbeing really turns on us being much more innovative," she says. "This was a mechanism that seemed to be working really well in a country high up in the innovation ecosystem."

The SSE will run events such as workshops, seminars, boot camps and intensive study tours, as well as academic modules courses for students from the partner institutions which will earn credit towards their degrees.

"We are trying to strengthen a community of rising stars. The idea is to move them along that journey a bit more quickly," says Mr Kaye.

NSW Deputy Premier and Minister for Skills, John Barilaro says the SSE is "a very important initiative going forward for NSW because innovation is a cornerstone of jobs growth".

"I am confident the SSE will develop into a cutting-edge entrepreneurial powerhouse drawing the best minds from all parts of the state which will place NSW in a leading position, not just domestically, but internationally," Mr Barilaro says.