Instilling Essential Globalization Skills Through Internet Based International Joint Venture Projects

The rapid, relentless, globalization of manufacturing and services, and the substantial productivity gains of the past several years, has created the need for well-rounded graduating engineers, understanding the business side of engineering just as well as the technical side. They also have to understand the rigors of brutal international competition, and be prepared to withstand it successfully, and even thrive in these conditions. In order to prepare our students for increased globalization, Cooper Union has undertaken the task of upgrading our course offerings, and improving our students’ business, communications, leadership, and teamwork skills throughout the curriculum. We also have created a course in which globalization is discussed at length, and applied in an Internet based jointventure project simulation, in the GLOBETECH project. The GLOBETECH project has been successful for the past nine years, and represents one of our major achievements in preparing our graduating engineers for the challenges of the twenty-first century. This article presents our recent experiences with the GLOBETECH project, and aims to encourage engineering schools from all over to participate in this, or similar projects.