Engineering Entrepreneurship Education

Innovation is a key component to the advancement of products and services available in the marketplace. It is this ability to generate new ideas that either advance existing products/services or create new market areas that have helped to create the success observed within the US economy. However, recently there has been an outcry about the lack of innovation occurring within American companies. A recent study done by MindMatters reported that only 5% of survey respondents felt that they were motivated to innovate and generate new ideas while 81% felt that even with the generation of new ideas their organizations were not in a position to be able to capitalize on bringing these ideas to market (Forbes, 2015). These statistics bring to the forefront just how critical it is to provide the next generation of engineers with the skillsets necessary to be able to generate new ideas and be enthusiastic about bringing them to market.

What is Engineering Entrepreneurship?
Engineering Entrepreneurship teaches students the knowledge, skills and attitudes necessary to identify opportunities, determine target customers, ideate, prototype and refine ideas as they work on moving new technologies and services into the marketplace. This program will give students a strong technical background in engineering design and computation while providing students with knowledge of key business practices from marketing to business model generation. Overall, students will leave the major with key problem solving skills and business savvy that will make them attractive to a variety of companies, government agencies and not-for-profit organizations. Whether students are seeking to create opportunities within an existing corporation or create their own venture, this degree program will give them the foundation necessary to be successful in today’s changing economy.