Honolulu, Hawaii
June 24, 2007
June 24, 2007
June 27, 2007
2153-5965
Systems Engineering Constituent Committee
13
12.630.1 - 12.630.13
10.18260/1-2--2888
https://peer.asee.org/2888
468
Dr. Carmo D'Cruz is Associate Professor of Engineering Enttrepreneurship in the Department of Engineering Systems at Florida Tech. He has over 20 years of industrial experience at Bell Labs,Advanced Micro Devices, Hitachi Semiconductor, RF Monolithics, Harris Semiconductor, Tantivy Communications and Chip Supply Inc. in addition to teaching experience in the Business and Engineering Schools at the University of Central Florida in Orlando.
Dr. Shoaib Shaikh is a Staff Engineer at Northrop Grumman Corporation in Melbourne. He has his PhD from Florida Tech. He is currently completing his Master's degree in Systems Engineering from Florida Tech. He regularly participates in Florida Tech outreach and experiential entrepreneurship activities
Engineering Entrepreneurship: A Killer App for Systems Engineering ?
Abstract
Engineering Entrepreneurship, Engineering Management and Systems Engineering courses offered by the Department of Engineering Systems at Florida Tech have greatly enriched the students’ educational experience, broadened their perspectives, served as community outreach forums and integrated experiential learning with academic programs. Students work in E-teams and write NCIIA proposals to commercialize innovative product or university/research lab developed technology.
This paper describes a unique course series in Systems Engineering (SE) Entrepreneurship. Innovation in product/service design and commercialization that enables entrepreneurship can be successfully leveraged by applying SE principles/ techniques which parallel entrepreneurship steps such as Customer Requirements Engineering and opportunity recognition; Project/Quality Engineering, Decision/Risk Analysis, Systems Modeling, Engineering Economics and business planning, Systems Integration and business plan development, Systems Launch considerations and product/business launch, etc. Concepts in strategy, team dynamics, and finance are integrated into these courses focusing on Engineering Entrepreneurship. It appears that Engineering Entrepreneurship has emerged as a Killer App for Systems Engineering.
Introduction
The emerging facts from successful organizations, including universities, indicate that the real source of power in a knowledge economy is in combining technical prowess with entrepreneurship.1 A survey of business executives and managers indicated that highly successful engineers are not only academically astute, but also possess entrepreneurial skills.2 The Engineers of 2020 will need to be educated as innovators, with more direct exposure to cross- disciplinary topics and the workings of an entrepreneurial economy.3 However, engineering schools have been slow to incorporate entrepreneurship courses into the technical programs.
A common complaint heard from most high tech entrepreneurs is that their entrepreneurial projects always take more than 2X the time, 2X the money and 2X the resources than what they planned for at the outset.4 It has been observed that most successful high tech and serial entrepreneurs have a systems engineering approach to their entrepreneurial ventures.5 The economy in which the Engineers of 2020 will work will be strongly influenced by the global marketplace for engineering services and a growing need for interdisciplinary and system-based approaches.6 While meeting the increasing demand for holistic, interdisciplinary education, innovative courses offered by Florida Tech’s Department of Engineering Systems have greatly enriched the students’ educational experience, broadened their perspectives, served as community outreach/ networking forums and integrated experiential learning with academic programs.
D'Cruz, C., & Shaikh, D. S. (2007, June), Engineering Entrepreneurship ? A Killer App For Se ? Paper presented at 2007 Annual Conference & Exposition, Honolulu, Hawaii. 10.18260/1-2--2888
ASEE holds the copyright on this document. It may be read by the public free of charge. Authors may archive their work on personal websites or in institutional repositories with the following citation: © 2007 American Society for Engineering Education. Other scholars may excerpt or quote from these materials with the same citation. When excerpting or quoting from Conference Proceedings, authors should, in addition to noting the ASEE copyright, list all the original authors and their institutions and name the host city of the conference. - Last updated April 1, 2015