Entrepreneurship & Innovation Education

Turning science into business

Entrepreneurship & Innovation (E&I) are series of workshop’s that educates students teams and starts ups to serve as leaders in the innovation economy with the knowledge, skills, and confidence to develop, scale and deliver breakthrough solutions to real-world problems. They will be prepared to do so within a range of organizational contexts: an entrepreneurial startup of their own, as key members of a founding team, or as an entrepreneurial member of a large organization.

The coherent combination of conceptual and practical elements that draws on a wealth of prior educational activities in this domain.

Students and startups who complete the Entrepreneurship and Innovation workshop will have developed knowledge and skills in:

  • The innovation process from the conception of an initial invention and the problem it may solve, to the refinement of the solution, to the considerations needed in the scale-up and delivery of the solution, to the launch of an appropriately funded entity.
  • The personal skills of communication, teamwork, decision-making and leadership, and the integrity and character, that are necessary to engage with stakeholders and develop the invention into a real-world product or process.
  • Strategies and methods to engage in rigorous iterations to identify and deeply understand societal needs/problems and develop robust scalable solutions.
  • Types of organizational models and designs for the delivery of innovations to the world.

Entrepreneurship and innovation are increasingly important in all areas of business and government.

Entrepreneurial start-ups galvanize the economy by identifying new opportunities and redirecting resources to them. Established firms innovate in order to outmaneuver or respond to their competition. And in the public sector, the need for effective policies to deal with new challenges and for increasing service delivery with declining budgets also places a premium on innovative thinking. These workshops focus on the skills necessary for the planning, development and launch of entrepreneurial and innovative ventures. The material covered includes the foundations of entrepreneurship, techniques for creative thinking, and processes for developing, planning and launching a new venture including protecting intellectual property, evaluating markets, developing innovative business models, budgeting, and raising finance. The major piece of assessment is the writing of a comprehensive business plan or business model canvas.