Engineering Entrepreneurship Courses Enhance Engineering Management Program At Florida Tech

Innovative Engineering Entrepreneurship courses in the Department of Engineering Systems at Florida Tech have greatly enriched the Engineering Management students’ educational experience, broadened their perspectives, served as community outreach forums and integrated holistic experiential learning with academic programs. The four well-balanced and appropriately sequenced courses in Engineering Entrepreneurship, Technical Marketing, High Tech Product Strategy and Technology Commercialization Strategies have been offered successively over four semesters. As part of the course project requirements, students work in E-teams to commercialize innovative product or university/research lab-developed technology. The E-team is not restricted to students in the class outside technical experts can be included as team members or advisors. The E-teams have to seek funding by completing NCIIA E-team proposals or SBIR/STTR proposals and presenting their business plans at investor-attended colloquiums and competitions. The “Entrepreneur in the Spotlight” seminar series is another innovative facet of the four-course series. Struggling/successful local technical entrepreneurs visit the class and present their business plan for critique and recommendations by the class. These courses are supplemented by other regional outreach/networking forums organized by Florida Tech and entrepreneur support organizations. The Entrepreneur Club at Florida Tech also organizes seminars, workshops, boot camps, and other grass roots entrepreneurship awareness programs to complement the course offerings. Students from these courses have excelled at local business plan competitions and a few start-up ventures have been launched. There is a contagious culture of entrepreneurship created on campus and on the Space Coast. This has facilitated cross-campus college collaborations and grant funding. Feedback on these courses has been positive and students have commented on how these courses have broadened their perspectives, made them more versatile and enhanced their career progression. Since most successful entrepreneurs have a holistic systems approach to new ventures, a unique “Systems Engineering Entrepreneurship” program is being pioneered to augment the Engineering Management program at Florida Tech.