2026 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

From Engineer to Social Entrepreneur: A Narrative Study of an Engineer Launching Their Technology Social Venture

Presented at Entrepreneurship & Engineering Innovation Division (ENT) Technical Session 3 -Social, Equity & Research Support Topics

Engineering skills are increasingly in demand in solving pressing social challenges around the world, such as healthcare accessibility, water scarcity, and extreme weather. To develop engineers who can tackle such social challenges with their technical knowledge, we are studying technology-based social ventures (TSVs), organizations that address social challenges based on their technical competencies. While such ventures are getting more attention, how engineers come to pursue such a career as a social entrepreneur is not well understood. There has been a limited discussion on the personal and professional metamorphosis involved in this process. To fill this gap, we need a deeper inquiry into the subjective experiences of individuals who launched their TSVs with engineering backgrounds. Therefore, this study is guided by the following research question: How does an engineer make sense of and experience the personal and professional transition from a technical professional to a social entrepreneur through the creation of a technology-based social venture?

To answer this research question, this study employs a narrative analysis of existing interview data to investigate the experience of an engineer who started a technology-based social venture. To obtain participants’ narratives, we conducted in-depth, semi-structured interviews. While multiple interviews were conducted with multiple engineer-entrepreneurs, we focus on introducing one narrative that well illustrates the transition experience in this paper. During the analysis, the focus was on reconstructing the narrative of the transition experience of the engineer based on Schlossberg's Transition Theory. This study uncovers the detailed processes that shape the career path of an engineer-social entrepreneur. The findings provide a rich, contextualized understanding of such transformation and inform the development of the engineering curriculum, which aims at nurturing an entrepreneurial engineering workforce with social responsibility. Professional development programs and entrepreneurial ecosystem supporters can also benefit from the findings by better understanding how engineers with a solid technical background become entrepreneurs who can create social value.

Authors

Arsalan Ashraf Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University [biography]

Arsalan Ashraf is a Ph.D. student in the Department of Engineering Education at Virginia Tech. His research interests include AI ethics, ethics and social responsibility, and lifelong learning. He has broad experience in academia and industry, which motivates him to do research on these vibrant areas. He is a first-generation student from a small village in Punjab, Pakistan. He completed his B.S. in Aviation Management from Lahore in 2017 and then worked in the aviation industry. After gaining experience, he changed his career path and entered academia as a lecturer at The University of Faisalabad in 2022. He joined Virginia Tech in the fall of 2024.
Bailey Kathryn McOwen Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University [biography]

Bailey McOwen is a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Engineering Education at Virginia Tech as well as a master’s student in the Engineering Administration program of the Grado Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering at Virginia Tech. Bailey’s research focuses on workforce development, specifically the continued professional training of engineering practitioners, engineering ethics in practice, and the application of emerging technologies in professional education. Through her research, service, and academic work, she aims to bridge engineering education and industry needs to support ethical engineering and lifelong learning practices across diverse engineering pathways.
Dr. Dayoung Kim Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University [biography]

Dr. Dayoung Kim is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Engineering Education (College of Engineering) at Virginia Tech and a Director of the LABoratory for Innovative and REsponsible ENgineering workforce (LAB-IREEN). She also serves as an Executive Committee Member and Affiliate Faculty of the Center for Future Work Places and Practices (CFWPP). Her Engineering Practice research examines the practice of engineers across a range of employment settings, including business organizations – from startups to large, established firms – and government agencies. Building on insights from this work, her Engineering Workforce Development research focuses on developing the future engineering workforce capable of contributing innovatively and responsibly within their own contexts. Across her research, teaching, and service, she aims to bridge academia, industry, and government by translating insights from engineering practice into scalable systems for education, workforce development, and science and technology policy. She received her Ph.D. in Engineering Education from Purdue University and her B.S. and M.S. in Chemical Engineering from Yonsei University and Purdue University, respectively. She was the 2022 Christine Mirzayan Science & Technology Policy Graduate Fellow at the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (NASEM).

Note

The full paper will be available to logged in and registered conference attendees once the conference starts on June 21, 2026, and to all visitors after the conference ends on June 24, 2026

« View session