Courses

Entrepreneurship increasingly has become a vehicle by which technology has been able to make a meaningful impact on society. At Princeton, where students develop an ability to think critically, they identify unmet needs along with the desire to develop solutions, products, and approaches to fill those needs. This is the essence of entrepreneurship. To satisfy this interest, the Keller Center for Innovation in Engineering Education supports a wide range of activities, including courses, workshops, and lecture series.

zschau.jpgSeveral courses featuring entrepreneurship and technology are offered at Princeton, with the foundational course being EGR 491 (ELE 491/ORF 491) High-Tech Entrepreneurship, taught by Ed Zschau '61. Zschau, a longtime visiting lecturer with the rank of professor in electrical engineering, operations research and financial engineering, and the Keller Center, has taught the course for the past decade and has guided the formation of numerous startup companies over those years.

Through the discussion in each class of actual case studies, the hands-on, practical course introduces seniors and graduate students to the analysis and actions required to launch a successful high-tech company. Zschau, who has been an entrepreneur and a venture capital investor (as well as a two- term U.S. congressman), provides students with a broad range of conceptual frameworks and analytical techniques while also encouraging them to be creative with their own analyses and action plans for the case situations.

"Although the course provides students with the tools and encouragement to start companies or to become contributors to startup ventures, they also come to understand in the course that entrepreneurship is really an approach to life ... to innovate, to start from scratch, to make happen good things that didn’t exist before," said Zschau. "Students learn that they can apply the lessons from the course in whatever endeavors they choose to undertake in their careers."

Students put the skills that they learn to use in two major papers; one evaluating the commercial feasibility of a new technology and the other analyzing in depth and learning from a real startup company, which involves personal interviews with the founders, CEO, key managers, and principal investors in that company. Along the way, students learn how to evaluate, implement, and fund their ideas as well as how to create business plans, negotiate successful relationships, and realize for their shareholders the value from a successful company.

Any student interested in entrepreneurship, economics, or business should take the class, said Alison Wood '08, who took the course in fall 2007.

"ELE 491 was great for a psychology major like myself, someone outside of the engineering department, because it focused on the psychological underpinnings of entrepreneurship (i.e., the guts, cooperation, and luck necessary to succeed in entrepreneurial endeavors)," Wood said. "At the conclusion of the class, we realized that Zschau’s message wasn’t 'how to succeed in business’ but rather ‘how to go through all experiences in life with an entrepreneurial spirit.'"

Course Listing (Fall 2009)

MAE 244/EGR 244 Introduction to Biomedical Innovation and Global Health (ST)
The course will focus on introductory biomedical innovation in three specific areas: Biomedical Implants; Nanotechnology and BioMEMS for Cancer Detection and Treatment; and Ceramic Water Filters for Water Purification. Topics will include basic concepts in cell and molecular biology, as well as fundamentals of materials science and bioengineering. The course will demonstrate how biomedical innovation has had an impact on global health and enterprise in the developed and the developing world. Professors: Winston Soboyejo, Karen Malatesta

MAE 437/EGR 437 Introduction to Innovation Process Management
In today's hypercompetitive global marketplace, innovation is the lifeblood of any business enterprise and the engine of economic growth. This course exposes students to all fundamental aspects of the technological innovation process, from idea/concept development through critical success factors to commercialization. It also covers the basic management practices required to excel--in a complex technological society--in the craft of successful innovation and prepares students to become technology-savvy entrepreneurs, leaders, executives, and/or managers of industry or government. Professor: Karl H. Zaininger

MAE 445/EGR 445 Entrepreneurial Engineering
This course builds on the technical foundations established in the engineering program, and extends the scope to include the business, financial, and marketing components that lead to successful entrepreneurial ventures. Students will be directly engaged in the process of identifying, creating and exploiting entrepreneurial opportunities. Entrepreneurial design will be introduced and developed. Students, working in small multidisciplinary teams, will identify, design and prototype a highly marketable, consumer product. Classic and modern market analysis, manufacture and distribution will be introduced along with business planning & finance. Professor: Daniel M. Nosenchuck

ELE 491/EGR 491/ORF 491 (and ELE 591) High-Tech Entrepreneurship
This "hands-on" practical course introduces students to the analysis and actions required to launch a successful high tech company. Using several conceptual frameworks and analytical techniques, it addresses the challenges of evaluating technologies for commercial feasibility, determining how best to launch a new venture, attracting the resources needed to start a company (e.g. people, corporate partners, and venture capital), preparing comprehensive business plans, structuring business relationships, and managing early stage companies toward "launch velocity" and sustainable growth. Professor: Ed Zschau

EGR 492 Technical Innovation and Foreign Policy
This course analyzes how technical innovation in the private sector serves to create or resolve international disputes. Students learn to assess the impact of rapid, discontinuous technical innovation on foreign policy outcomes, and how to trace the underlying scientific source of these innovations. They learn how business managers and government regulators grapple with technical innovation. Students also become handy with basic decision-tree analysis. From a theoretical perspective, this course focuses on the interface between regulatory policy and markets, between the theory of public goods and the hard realities of private profit. Professor: James Shinn

EGR 495 Special Topics in Entrepreneurship: A Collaboratory for Social Entrepreneurship
(SE Lab)
Design/development of innovative social ventures -- often technology driven -- addressing major global challenges: poverty alleviation and international development, health and human rights, energy and environmental sustainability, peace and security, education. SE Lab fuses theoretical and practical approaches, offering an overview of social entrepreneurship and parallel development of team-based action projects. Lab participants collaborate, brainstorming idea development, designing innovative/feasible solutions/plans for the problem/opportunity chosen. Classes combine lectures, case discussion, and small group workshops. Professor: Gordon Bloom