Founders Laboratory STL: Experiencing Tech Entrepreneurship & Engr Leadership

2 units

The development of technical prowess and acumen is a fundamental outcome of an education in engineering, science, and the applied sciences. Moving theory into practice requires not only expert level technical skills but also applied entrepreneurial skills. In technical entrepreneurship, success is not always a tractable metric. In this seminar, the learner will gain understanding in fundamental principles of problem identification and formulation, systems-level analysis, engineering leadership, entrepreneurship applied to engineering technical products & services, the role of the start-up founder and how to build metrics into the foundation of a simulated startup. More importantly, we will craft individualized success definitions for actual start-up opportunities. Real world discussions and both real and simulated case examples will be used to illuminate the challenges and opportunities faced in technical entrepreneurship and what it takes to be successful. One weekend during the course, students will participate in a workshop focused on educating about and accelerating technical start-up activity (modeled after Startup Weekends). This workshop will be an important contributor to the team-based term project, which constitutes a significant portion of the grade. This seminar is experimental and action based, thus its association with the laboratory model.