Engineering Entrepreneurship: An Example of A Paradigm Shift in Engineering Education

Abstract

Abstract This paper describes a course on technology‐based entrepreneurship. Brown University's Division of Engineering has created a two‐semester course sequence designed to introduce students to entrepreneurship through a unique merger of classroom learning and industry participation. The course is open to advanced undergraduates from all engineering disciplines, and emphasis is placed upon recruiting almost half of the student participants from outside of engineering in order to develop “team building” skills. Local “parent companies” provide seed ideas or concepts to student groups who use skills learned in the classroom (both in this course as well as other courses) to develop and refine the parent company's idea and turn it into a viable simulated spin‐off business or new start‐up. Managers from the parent companies serve in an evolving role over the two‐semester sequence beginning as a “board of directors” for the spin‐off and eventually evolving into a potential source of start‐up capital (or possibly a customer for the products of the company). The faculty carefully manage the student‐company interface. Deliverables at the end of the two‐semester sequence include a business plan and a prototype product.