An initial step towards developing techno-entrepreneurs in the engineering curriculum

CONTEXT Innovation and creativity are essential and related to entrepreneurial learning, skills, knowledge and mindset. Previous research specified requirements for engineering educational programs to boost students’ creative skills in engineering. In order to enhance creative thinking among engineering students, our teaching team has developed an interdisciplinary subject integrating entrepreneurship components into a traditional operational management perspective. Our teaching team endeavoured to build capabilities that allow future engineer graduates to engage in a creative process to solve a problem or to design and make a new artefact and become techno-entrepreneurs. Our works analysed whether a major assessment within a subject in third year engineering curricula – a team project to develop a business plan based on a new idea – help students to implement their learning into tangible outcomes and develop their creative skills. PURPOSE The main research question in this paper is whether students utilize or implement the lecture content in their group projects to learn effectively and enhance their learning. APPROACH Researchers in this paper analysed students’ projects, which were submitted as group assignments during three years between 2014 and 2016 in regards to how students applied the lecture content and tutorial activities in their projects. Focusing on creativity and innovation as the main elements of selecting a new idea for the project, we evaluated whether the teaching and learning process helped students to learn and apply concepts of creativity and innovation in a practical project. In addition, we were looking to classify types of ideas and areas of businesses that engineering students have been interested in. RESULTS The findings showed that majority of engineering students were focusing on new technologies to introduce new products and develop new services. On the other hand, although the concepts of creativity and innovation are necessary for their projects, students mainly followed up the current trends in technologies that pioneered by large corporations in high tech industries. In these circumstances, it seems students followed the type of innovation known as “incremental innovation” or steady improvements based on sustained technologies. CONCLUSIONS Students paid attention to the concept of creativity and incremental innovations in their projects as part of the lecture content and learning objectives, but often they did not try radical innovations or fundamental rethink based on disruptive technologies. This evidence encouraged our teaching team to modify the requirements of projects, give more values and marks regarding radical innovation in assessment rubrics and at the same time, take more emphases in lectures and tutorials to encourage students to try radical innovations.