Undergraduate entrepreneurship curriculum at the University of Utah’s David Eccles School of Business has been completely revamped with the launch of the Interdisciplinary Entrepreneurship Certificate that’s designed for all non-business majors, but also available to all students.
The program now offers a new startup bootcamp course called “Entrepreneurship and the Scientific Method” (ENTP 1020) that has a unique seven-week lecture and a five-day immersive bootcamp experience during fall break. The course also counts as one of the only business courses that has a science general education (GE) designation.
“To my knowledge, no other college offers a course that provides students such a hands-on, transformative entrepreneurial experience in this format,” said Jay Barney, one of world’s leading strategy scholars and a department chair at the David Eccles School of Business.
By the end of the course, students will have created a prototype of a product or service that they then pitch at the culminating Entrepreneurs Fair to a group of investors, industry experts and faculty members. Top teams and prototypes receive resources – like funding, mentorship, etc. – needed to launch their concepts to market.
The class is taught by Donna Root, the co-founder and president of an innovative robotics company Jigabot, which won Best of Show at the Consumer Electronics Show and the Outdoor Retail Show. Tech news publication Mashable heralded her technology as “one of the top 15 coolest, smartest and wildest robots you must have in your home.”
Root, a quantum physics enthusiast, also plans to bring in top local entrepreneurs and executives during the course to help students. Her goal is to excite and enable students to create their own entrepreneurial opportunities and be their own bosses.
“This course is about implementing the scientific method as a framework to create a unique product or service,” she said. “Any student, regardless of background or experience, can significantly benefit from taking the course.”
Those interested can now enroll in ENTP 1020, which starts fall semester 2014.
Learn more about this course and the Undergraduate Interdisciplinary Entrepreneurship Certificate at www.gotentrepreneurs.com/info.
