Entrepreneurial Skills for Engineers- An Interdisciplinary, Team Project Approach

ABSTRACT: We report on our experience with a course where engineering students learn to create a commercialization plan for a technological innovation. Student teams consisting of both business/economics masters students and research engineers design an entrepreneurial strategy for bringing the technology out of the doctoral students ' labs and into practical use. Engineering students develop written and oral communications skills as well as experience in a multidisciplinary team environment as a by-product of the course structure. The innovative team-taught course focuses on commercializing a wireless or networking technology with the goal of establishing more entrepreneurial business skills in engineering students. We discuss our approach to the interdisciplinary course, the course structure, and the goals for the course. We address the lessons learned, the advantages and challenges, and the implications for future coursework designed to imbue engineers with business skills. Based on our experience in this and prior courses, multidisciplinary education is more likely to be successful with our team-oriented and project-focused structure