Curricular Model : Engineering Entrepreneurship Certificate Program

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Engineering Entrepreneurship Certificate Program
University of Central Florida

Responding to a strong demand for engineering entrepreneurship education in Central Florida, in 2002 the University of Central Florida created the Engineering Entrepreneurship Certificate Program. The program consists of a three-course sequence in which students form into E-Teams and commercialize a novel device while at the same time learning a wide range of issues related to high-tech start-ups. The pilot class produced several successful start-ups, and program designer Dr. Carmo D'Cruz believes the program has created a contagious culture of entrepreneurship on UCF campus and beyond.

University of Central Florida
Engineering Entrepreneurship Certificate Program

Program goals and structure
In 2002, the University of Central Florida used NCIIA funding to create the Engineering Entrepreneurship Certificate Program, a three-course sequence in which students form into E-Teams and commercialize a novel device while learning a range of issues related to high-tech start-up ventures. The main goals of the program are to:

have students experience the process of engineering entrepreneurship by doing - by identifying and pursuing a business opportunity as a team;
have students learn how to structure and develop a business attractive to investors and popular with customers;
analyze the problems encountered in starting high-tech ventures; and
network with practicing professionals, learn from their experience, and acquire practical knowledge.

The overarching goal of the program is to develop business-savvy engineering entrepreneurs who go on to help continue development of the burgeoning I-4 high-tech corridor around Kennedy Space Center, creating jobs in the process and enhancing a Central Florida economy damaged by the post-9/11 decrease in tourism.

The three courses within the program are:

Engineering Entrepreneurship – Provides an introductory overview of engineering entrepreneurship. Students begin developing business plans. Strategies for increasing chances of success are discussed, as well as the risks, rewards and challenges of entrepreneurship.

Technical Marketing / High-Tech Product Strategy – Gives engineers a strong marketing orientation, shaping their idea to the right product for the right customer. Develops paradigm pliancy, thinking in terms of the whole product.

Technology Commercialization Strategies – Develops the entrepreneur’s skills in marshalling the resources for launching a successful high-tech venture, covering advisory boards, employees, strategic partners, lawyers and capital. Covers the fundamentals of business leadership in the early-growth phase of a high-tech venture.

Running alongside all three courses are E-Team formation and investigation. Students form into teams, develop their products and pursue commercialization. For the final part of the program, students write a professional business plan and present it to the NASA/UCF Incubators, Engineering Entrepreneurship Colloquiums and Technology Development and Commercialization Offices, as well as interested venture capitalists and angel investors.

History and context
While working at Harris Corporation years ago, program designer Dr. Carmo D’Cruz noticed that the engineering and marketing departments were always butting heads. “The engineers wanted it their way, and the marketing guys wanted it another way,” says D’Cruz, a graduate of the University of Texas at Austin's engineering entrepreneurship program. “I wanted to give these guys new insights, to show that engineering and marketing don’t have to clash. I decided to develop and teach an innovative course in Technical Marketing at Harris and at Florida Tech. It worked well, and the course became very popular. UCF asked me to teach it; I agreed.”

Eventually, D’Cruz developed and taught two pioneering courses within the Marketing Department at UCF: Technical Marketing and High-Tech Product Strategy. Elements of the two courses were included in courses D’Cruz went on to teach in UCF’s Engineering Management Program at the Kennedy Space Center in Brevard County. In 2001, while teaching a Technology Strategy course in Brevard, D’Cruz became aware of a “considerable latent demand” for engineering entrepreneurship education in Central Florida. “This was due to the proximity of NASA/KSC. There were, and still are, a number of talented engineers who have the necessary technical background for innovative ideas, but not the business know-how to create a start-up. Also, because of the uncertainties over the NASA budget, a lot of engineers were contemplating using some of their innovative ideas for their own ends.”

This led, in late 2001, to the development of the Engineering Entrepreneurship Certificate Program at UCF.

E-Teams
In the program, students pursue their own entrepreneurial ideas and work in teams. E-Teams are not restricted to the students in the class. They can be virtual teams, and include external experts as members of the start-up management team or the board of advisors.

According to D’Cruz, student and team enthusiasm during the 2002 pilot was very high. “Students sometimes arrived an hour before the start of class and often stayed over late, huddling and hustling, working in small groups on projects, networking with guest speakers, making deals, helping each other out and working on their business plans.”

Innovative and entrepreneurial outcomes
The program was first offered in UCF’s Engineering Management Program at the Kennedy Space Center. According to D’Cruz, “There was a great untapped resource at KSC. Finding innovative, talented engineers who could proliferate their creative ideas into business ventures was like hitting pay dirt and finding oil in Texas.” Students in the program created a number of successful ventures:

Zip Vac Bag – developed and patented an innovative self-vacuum storage bag with an innovative business model. The device pumps air and other gases out of the bag through a self contained pumping system at the top, leaving it airtight. The Zip Vac Bag E-Team won Advanced E-Team funding as well as several national and local business plan competitions, including the Howard J. Leonhardt International Business Challenge in Miami.
Plasmonia – proliferated space technology for terrestrial applications and developed a process that converts natural gas to ammonia, and ammonia to ultra-pure hydrogen, for fuel cells.
Flotation Flood Wall – developed and patented a self-deploying barrier that expands when water comes in and features a flotation collar that rises to the level of the incoming water. This team was also awarded Advanced E-Team funding.
BASE-ics – developed an innovative hitter-adjustable batting tee.
NanoDynamo – plans to commercialize UCF’s proprietary nanotechnologies.

Challenges and lessons learned
A challenge in getting the program off the ground was convincing faculty the program should be in the engineering department instead of the business school. “Business schools are, of course, the traditional center for courses on entrepreneurship. Having studied and taught entrepreneurship and related courses in the Business and Engineering colleges, it’s my observation that there’s more synergy for technical innovation-based entrepreneurship in engineering schools than in business schools. This is because the entrepreneurial ideas that typically come from business school students are varied and divergent, with little synergy: for example, one student will want to start a business based on a new hot sauce, another will want to start a nightclub. In engineering schools, despite diverse engineering departments, there is more focus as everything revolves around high tech; everyone has, basically, a common goal: to start a business based on technology. That communal goal provides more camaraderie, more synergy.”

Future prospects
D’Cruz attests that the program and other entrepreneurship initiatives at UCF and the UCF Technology Incubator have created a contagious culture of entrepreneurship on the UCF campus and throughout the Central Florida area. “There’s an increased awareness of the potential benefits of technology commercialization, and the opportunities it presents,” he says. D’Cruz is working on a number of new programs promoting entrepreneurship, at Florida Tech, Brevard Community College, TRDA, and along the Space Coast Corridor to Daytona Beach, including entrepreneurial outreach programs for children, which will “demonstrate that entrepreneurship is a viable career alternative at a very early age.”

Supplementary materials
ASEE paper "Turning Engineers Into Entrepreneurs - And Transforming A Region" by Dr. Carmo D'Cruz and Tom O'Neal.

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