The Synergistic Roles Of A Supportive Institutional Environment, Curriculum Development, And A Student Friendly Business Incubator In Developing Engineering Students With An Entrepreneurial Orientation

Stevens Institute of Technology has been creating an educational environment that has been named TechnogenesisTM to capture an orientation towards entrepreneurship that permeates the broader institutional mindset, from undergraduate programs through to graduate programs and faculty scholarship. Technogenesis has been embraced as a strategic direction for the Institute through retreats, group discussions and forums over a number of years involving faculty, trustees, administrators and students. Curriculum development has seen the introduction of entrepreneurship elements into the undergraduate engineering core, mostly through the eight-semester design sequence, as well as elective coursework and seminars. Students are encouraged to work with faculty on projects that have the potential to spawn intellectual property as well as advance knowledge for dissemination in the traditional manner. The infrastructure is provided to assist and encourage faculty and students to move their intellectual property through to commercialization in cooperation with industry or through a startup venture in the Stevens Technology Ventures Incubator. These elements taken together are synergistically leading to a campus-wide excitement towards entrepreneurship both in educating students for a world in which such an orientation is becoming a key success factor and providing an additional path for faculty to contribute to their own success and that of the Institute. Introduction There is a significant trend nationally to develop a more entrepreneurial orientation in engineering students. This has come about primarily because the environment into which our students are and will graduate has undergone a profound change in recent years. Jobs are being created in small companies and start-up ventures. This has been paralleled by the fact that major P ge 8.172.1 Proceedings of the 2003 American Society of Engineering Education Annual Conference and Exposition Copyright © 2003, American Society for Engineering Education corporations have been forced by intense global competition to fundamentally change their structures to become leaner and more agile. This has led to increased use of contract professionals, more emphasis on flexible multidisciplinary teams (in many cases operating internationally) and corporations taking a different stance to new product development. The latter includes buying in new technology once it has been proven rather than developing inhouse. It also includes promotion of intrapreneurship , including spinning off successful internal ventures to maximize value. For engineering graduates entering this environment, an entrepreneurial orientation and associated knowledge and skills will be a key career enabler. Development of an institutional culture to foster entrepreneurship In response to recognition of the changing business environment, which fundamentally affects our various stakeholders, Stevens has engaged in a sea change in its culture to promote an orientation to a more entrepreneurial institutional mindset, from undergraduate programs through to graduate programs and faculty scholarship. This has been given the name TechnogenesisTM and is officially defined as “the educational frontier wherein faculty, students and colleagues from industry jointly nurture the process of conception, design, and marketplace realization of technology”. As noted by Stevens Institute historian Dr. Geoffrey Clark, “it (Techogenesis) was inspired by the engineer-entrepreneurs of the family of John Stevens that pioneered the first successful American railroad, promoted establishment of the U.S. patent office to protect intellectual property, and founded the Institute to create "captains of industry." So in this respect we are seeing a reaffirmation of the original core values of the founders. Technogenesis represents a strategic move that came as a result of a series of retreats and forums that started in 1997 and continue. They have involved faculty, staff, trustees, students as well as representatives of business, industry and government. The outcome of these deliberations was formation of a Technogenesis Task Force to determination how best to promote an entrepreneurial culture. The Task Force established a set of objectives, actions, timelines, projected costs and responsibilities. They engaged the Trustees and established a Technogenesis Fund. This has been used to provide seed funds to some 22 faculty in the last two years for entrepreneurial research involving students. The Fund also supports Summer TG scholarships to encourage undergraduates to engage in entrepreneurial research with faculty and with startup companies in the Stevens Technology Ventures Incubator. There were 22 awarded in 2001 and 25 in 2002. An entity named Stevens Technologies Inc. was created to support the commercialization of Stevens’ intellectual property and to provide support to faculty and students who wish to start businesses in partnership with Stevens. Technology Ventures Incubator Stevens Technology Ventures Incubator (TVI) was started in 1991 on the campus of the Institute. Its location has helped it become an integral part of campus life as the Technogenesis initiative has progressed, with many students and faculty working with the resident companies. It P ge 8.172.2 Proceedings of the 2003 American Society of Engineering Education Annual Conference and Exposition Copyright © 2003, American Society for Engineering Education has proven very successful in nurturing startup companies to success and has won several awards. It has assisted 56 resident companies and helped them to raise over $55M. However, until relatively recently these were companies that came to Stevens rather than being started by Stevens personnel. Since 1998, TVI has sought to be the location of choice for Stevens' own technology transfer initiatives, providing office space, business experience and networking opportunities to start-ups that license and commercialize Stevens' patented technology. In the last four years eight companies have been formed that involve Stevens faculty, in addition several companies have been started by recent graduates during that period. Impact on the engineering curriculum For undergraduate engineering students there are two levels of engagement. There is a base level introduction to entrepreneurship materials in the core curriculum. This is implemented primarily through the core design course sequence that extends through all eight semesters, and through increased focus on project-based learning. The Design Spine includes fundamentals of marketing, finance, business development and project management. A second level provides for students with the interest to supplement the core material with an elective senior year course that focuses on intrapreneurship and entrepreneurship aspects of business. Seminars on Intellectual Property, Venture Funding, etc., are also provided on campus. The engineering curriculum is illustrated in Figure 1 to highlight the eight-semester Design Spine. Figure 1 The Stevens Engineering Curriculum HUMANITIES AND SOCIAL SCIENCES CORE SCIENCE ENGINEERING SCIENCE DISCIPLINARY ENGINEERING DESIGN I Graphics DESIGN 4 Electronics and Instrumentation DESIGN 6 Disciplinary Design DESIGN 5 Materials Processing DESIGN 2 Mechanics of Solids DESIGN 3 Thermodynamics/ Energy Conversion, Circuits SENIOR DESIGN