A new $50,000 Phase II grant from the Kern Entrepreneurship Education Network (KEEN) will help advance UDM’s intercollegiate entrepreneurship program, to be proposed as a minor in the summer of 2008. So far, four new courses have been developed and piloted:

• Interdisciplinary Design, Entrepreneurship and Service (IDEAS)
• Innovation and Creativity
• Front End of Innovation
• Product Entrepreneurship

These courses, along with several others, will serve as the core for the proposed minor. The IDEAS course currently offered involves two teams of students from Architecture, Business Administration, Engineering and Psychology working on the design of a light-rail, street-level transit stop/station.

The latest KEEN grant, along with support from the National Collegiate Inventors and Innovators Alliance, Ford Motor Company and the Jesuit 100 Association, will help in further development of the curriculum.

“An additional strategic element of the program involves developing case studies to illustrate how entrepreneurs have capitalized on their knowledge of specific technical or scientific topics. These case studies are then integrated into the relevant course, which is often required in the student’s major,” says Jonathan Weaver, professor of Mechanical Engineering. 

To date, three case studies have been developed around three entrepreneurs and their ventures: 

• Jonathan Smith and Wave Dispersion Technologies
• Ray Gunn and his work with Somanetics and Clarity, and
• Matt Younkle and Laminar Technologies’ TurboTap. 

“The entrepreneurship team would like to acknowledge these entrepreneurs for their time and enthusiastic support in developing the case studies as well as the Kern Family Foundation for making the vision of such technical entrepreneurship case studies a reality,” says Nassif Rayess, associate professor of Mechanical Engineering.

Weaver and Rayess, along with Oswald Mascarenhas, S.J., professor of Business Administration, are spearheading the entrepreneurship program efforts.