Conference Session

Course-Based Approaches to Entrepreneurship

Collection

2008 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Jonathan Weaver, University of Detroit Mercy; Nassif Rayess, University of Detroit Mercy

Tagged Divisions

Entrepreneurship & Engineering Innovation

AC 2008-1210: USING TECHNICAL ENTREPRENEURSHIP CASE STUDIES TODEVELOP THE ENTREPRENEURIAL MINDSET IN ENGINEERING STUDENTSJonathan Weaver, University of Detroit MercyNassif Rayess, University of Detroit Mercy Page 13.1360.1© American Society for Engineering Education, 2008 USING TECHNICAL ENTREPRENEURSHIP CASE STUDIES TO DEVELOP THE ENTREPRENEURIAL MINDSET IN ENGINEERING STUDENTSAbstractThe flattening of the world is rejuvenating the call for engineering colleges to better educatestudents to be creative and innovative. In addition, the number of engineers going to work forstart-ups and smaller companies continues to rise. The recent growth of

Conference Session

Learning from Entrepreneurship Programs

Collection

2008 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Jeffrey Blessing, Milwaukee School of Engineering; Kristen Mekemson, Kern Family Foundation; David Pistrui, Illinois Institute of Technology

Tagged Divisions

Entrepreneurship & Engineering Innovation

marketplace. Industry is asking for engineers with better communication andteamwork skills, and most importantly, a broader understanding of how to solve real worldproblems and create value in the marketplace. While some engineering schools are beginning tointegrate entrepreneurship and business concepts into the curriculum, many ABET-accreditedschools are slow to react to the needs of industry and the marketplace.Recognizing that this problem is threatening the quality of U.S. engineering talent, the KernFamily Foundation established the Kern Entrepreneurship Education Network (KEEN) with themission to create an action-oriented, entrepreneurial mindset among engineering, science andtechnical undergraduates. The KEEN initiative, launched in 2005

Conference Session

Opportunities for Entrepreneurship Programs and Program Assessment

Collection

2008 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Thomas Mason, Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology

Tagged Divisions

Entrepreneurship & Engineering Innovation

considers whether entrepreneurshipcan be learned and the specific skills and traits that are associated with successfulentrepreneurship. It examines the activities of entrepreneurship centers and otherprograms for engineering students and concludes that there are a lot of resourcesavailable to develop an entrepreneurial mindset. The problems are that we need to reachfar more students, continually learn more about what works to make them effectiveentrepreneurs and innovators and develop more champions within the engineeringfaculties to get our students what they will need.The importance of entrepreneurial thinking for engineersThe National Academy of Engineering has pointed out that engineers will need to bemuch more entrepreneurial in the 21st

Conference Session

Opportunities for Entrepreneurship Programs and Program Assessment

Collection

2008 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

James Green, University of Maryland; Georgina Johnston, University of Maryland

Tagged Divisions

Entrepreneurship & Engineering Innovation

EducationAbstractWhile the Hinman CEOs Program at the University of Maryland, College Park is committed topreparing students for entry into the entrepreneurial community by developing theirentrepreneurial mindsets and functional skill sets is a definitive objective, measuringperformance in these areas is a significant challenge.To meet this challenge, the Hinman CEOs Program has developed and implemented aperformance measurement system that assesses its entrepreneurship students’ progress in coursesand programs. Our performance measurement model is a picture of how the organization does itswork and links both short- and long-term outcomes with program activities and the theoreticalprinciples in play. The courses and activities managed by the University align

Conference Session

Successful Outcomes of Student Entrepreneurship

Collection

2008 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Khanjan Mehta, Pennsylvania State University; Sven Bilen, Pennsylvania State University

Tagged Divisions

Entrepreneurship & Engineering Innovation

philosophy,curriculum, instructional strategy, preliminary assessment results and the teaching toolsemployed to enhance the students’ entrepreneurial experience.IntroductionFrans Johansson, in his book The Medici Effect1 recounts the story of the Medicis, a bankingfamily in Florence who were patrons in a wide range of disciplines. Due to the Medicis and afew other like-minded families, sculptors, scientists, poets, philosophers, financiers, painters, andarchitects from all over Europe and as far as China converged upon the city of Florence. Therethey found each other, learned from one another, and broke down the barriers between theirdisciplines and cultures. Together they formed a new world based on new ideas—what becameknown as the Rinascimento or

Conference Session

Course-Based Approaches to Entrepreneurship

Collection

2008 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Andrew Gerhart, Lawrence Technological University; Donald Carpenter, Lawrence Technological University

Tagged Divisions

Entrepreneurship & Engineering Innovation

business plan competitions, speaker series, student entrepreneurship clubs, andseminars. At LTU, the grant provided the funding to integrate the existing entrepreneurialprograms into a new innovative interdisciplinary program focused on developing the“entrepreneurial mindset” on our campus. The skills associated with the entrepreneurial mindsetare communication, teamwork, leadership, ethics and ethical decision-making, opportunityrecognition, persistence, creativity, innovation, tolerance for ambiguity, risk analysis, creativeproblem solving, critical thinking, and business skills (including marketing, financial analysis,and strategic planning). The course described within this paper (EME 4981 Creative ProblemSolving) was one of the courses

Conference Session

Entrepreneurship Education

Collection

2008 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Daniel Raviv, Florida Atlantic University

Tagged Divisions

Entrepreneurship & Engineering Innovation

students’ innovation-related skills as well as students’ reflections on the class. Themain idea is to develop a student-centered environment that helps students to develop a can-do,proactive, innovative mindset; an environment that will light their spark of innovation, and providethem with resources to translate their ideas from paper to prototype. We have identified four majorgroups of relevant skills, namely, problem solving, “big picture”, personal and social skills, and usedseveral different activities to try to boost them. A variety of projects and challenges, and multi-sensory activities were synthesized to create an empirical, authentic, and multi-disciplinaryexperience. This effort is in line with our college longer term goal to infuse