ECE 39595 - The Entrepreneurial Engineer: Bridging Technology and Business

Course Details

Lecture Hours: 1 Credits: 1

Counts as:

  • EE - Complementary Selective
  • CMPE Complementary Selective

Normally Offered:

Each Fall

Campus/Online:

On-campus only

Requisites:

Junior standing or higher (completed sophomore-level courses)

Catalog Description:

How can you identify a problem/market opportunity that can become the basis for the creation and growth of a high-impact technology-based enterprise? What are the differences between an idea and an innovation? How can you come up with out-of-the-box innovative ideas? How do you evaluate the competitive landscape? What are the steps necessary to take an idea from conception to a successful business execution? How do entrepreneurs form teams and gather the resources necessary to create a successful startup? These are some of the questions we will answer and discuss in this undergraduate seminar for all ECE undergraduate students with an interest in entrepreneurship and startups that leverage breakthrough information, energy, medical and consumer technologies. This course constitutes a combination of weekly lectures by the staff and world-class entrepreneurial invited speakers.

Required Text(s):

None.

Recommended Text(s):

  1. Disciplined Entrepreneurship: 24 Steps to a Successful Startup , Bill Aulet

Lecture Outline:

Lecture Lecture
1 Ideas and innovations, what is the difference?
1 How to identify good problems and market opportunities?
1 Trend spotting
1 Customer discovery and segmentation
1 Competitive landscape
1 Where do good ideas come from?
1 Critical evaluation and red teaming
1 How do you make money off your product? Business plan
1 How do you make money off your product? Business plan
1 How do you design and build your product?
1 Go to market strategy (sales and distribution)
1 Legal and organizational matter
1 Scaling the business

Engineering Design Content:

  • Establishment of Objectives and Criteria

Engineering Design Consideration(s):

  • Economic
  • Environmental
  • Health/Safety
  • Social
  • Global
  • Cultural

Assessment Method:

Evaluations will be performed through self-reflection assignments and an on-line discussion forum.