Starting this fall, University of Colorado at Boulder engineering students will be able to earn an entrepreneurship certificate that will complement their engineering and technology education and prepare them to start their own businesses.
The new Engineering Entrepreneurship Certificate Program, also known as E-ship, is intended for engineering students who not only want to design and build technologies for the future, but who also seek to develop entrepreneurship skills that will help them succeed in bringing new products to market.
For undergraduates, the 12-credit certificate program seamlessly integrates the upper-class engineering curriculum, in which students spend a full year creating a senior design project, with courses in finance, marketing and business plan development, so that students are prepared with a prototype and business plan upon graduation.
A 12-credit certificate also is available at the graduate student level, and can be taken either on campus or through distance education.
"E-ship integrates technical and entrepreneurial education within a competitive, real-world framework so that graduates can become business leaders and changemakers through innovation and invention," said director Kurt Smith, an experienced entrepreneur and scholar-in-residence in the Lockheed Martin Engineering Management Program.
The new certificate is a partnership between the Engineering Management Program in the College of Engineering and Applied Science and the Deming Center for Entrepreneurship in the Leeds School of Business. The Deming Center teaches the Business Plan Preparation course and hosts an annual business plan competition attended by business leaders and venture capitalists.
Students in the Engineering Entrepreneurship Certificate Program will be able to pitch their ideas and compete for prize money as they bridge the gap between product development and successful commercialization.
For more information or to apply for the Engineering Entrepreneurship Certificate Program visit eship.colorado.edu.