2023 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Entrepreneurship and the development of the “entrepreneurial mindset” have emerged within the last two decades in the field of engineering education. Not only is entrepreneurship vital for the advancement of technology and economic growth, but it has also shown promise in helping to increase students’ skills and preparedness for entering the workforce after graduation when incorporated into the engineering curriculum. To stimulate more entrepreneurial engagement, the National Science Foundation (NSF) and the National Institutes of Health (NIH) recently introduced similar programs called Innovation Corps (I-Corps), which are designed to lead small teams through customer discovery and business model validation during a seven- to eight-week bootcamp. Some previous research focused on the NSF I-Corps, which specifically targets graduate and post-doctoral students, has shown that students face challenges as they enter the program with little entrepreneurial knowledge or skills. Additionally, an increasing number of undergraduate students are conducting research through REUs and internships, and an entrepreneurial mindset at this stage can be pivotal in promoting future translational research. As evidenced, there is a need for more entrepreneurial instruction in Engineering undergraduate curriculum.
In this study, we developed a new Entrepreneurial Bioengineering elective course for junior and senior undergraduate engineering students that models various aspects of I-Corps programs. The course introduces entrepreneurship, business model canvas, and lean start-up principles to the students with a focus on medical device customer discovery and technology commercialization. Students work in teams to form project ideas, interview customers, test business model hypotheses, and present their discoveries. To assess the outcomes of the course, we devised a survey that students took at the beginning and end of the semester. The survey consisted of open-ended and 5-point Likert scale questions focused on perceived entrepreneurial knowledge and soft (professional)-skill development. Pre- and post-semester surveys were compared for each student. Our analyses thus far have shown that after taking the course, students have more entrepreneurial and business model knowledge, as well as increased confidence in their ability to interact with and create value for customers in future endeavors. Continuing studies of this course aim to understand its long-term impact on students’ entrepreneurial mindsets and career goals as they carry forward their entrepreneurial skillset into senior capstone design projects.