Innov8x Course Series

This preliminary course begins our signature innov8x series, where underclassmen are given the opportunity to engage in a handful of projects similar to those done by our semester challenges. Students are taken through the innovation process in greater detail and how they can use those skills to future enhance their entrepreneurial career. This course places emphasis on professional communication and open-ended problem-solving.

*Fall semester only. (1-3 semester hours)

Our popular Innov8x Create class introduces concepts and tools students can use to accelerate the design, validation, and application of innovative solutions. Through an entrepreneurial mindset, undergraduates are taught how to identify and articulate problems faced by stakeholders and beneficiaries. The course then outlines the process of designing and testing practical solutions to those problems in collaboration with specific stakeholders. Students are given insight into beneficiary discovery, prototyping strategies, business model design, constrained creativity, efficient methods of experimentation, and rapid design iteration.

Solving these challenges requires the need for both technical and social skills in order to engage directly with stakeholders. Innov8x Create is grounded heavily in collaborative creativity theory and organizational behavior (social psychology), as well as design principles, entrepreneurship, and innovation management.

*Spring semester only. (3 semester hours)

This course is offered in collaboration with the Mines Data Science Program under the endorsement of the McNeil Center. For the first five weeks of the semester, students meet concurrently with those attending INNO 444. Course content is relatively the same with an academic focus on data science.

*Spring semester only. (3 semester hours)

Innov8x Studio is offered as an intensive extension to Innov8x Create for students looking to take their solutions to the next level. Offered year-round (including a summer residency program), this course provides students a space to innovate and develop their solutions to meet a pre-identified need in their respective market or organization. This course highly encourages and supports entrepreneurs in launching their startup or initiative.

(1-3 lab hours, depending on commitment)

Prerequisite: Must take ANY intro. to entrepreneurship course

**Scholarships available. Contact the McNeil Center for more information.

Beyond Innov8x

This class will equip students with the knowledge, skills and attitudes needed to identify, define, and begin solving problems. This course places emphasis on challenges faced in people’s day-to-day, enabling students to tackle those faced in the future workplace. By the end of it, students will be able to assess important aspects of certain problems in order to decide which ones are worth solving.

This course introduces students to the entrepreneurial mindset and how to put it to practice. It takes them through the process of exploring problems of interest, and developing creative ideas to address them. This type of mind- and skill-set is applicable to all careers, simply because it redefines many commonly held assumptions about the innovative process. While it places strict focus on business, finance, and marketing, these skills foster a pragmatic approach that can be taken into any field.

EBGN 360 puts these skills to the test by expecting students to start their own venture and be an active participant in the learning process.

This course leads students through the process of developing and validating a business model for an innovative product or service provided by a potential start-up or established company. The creation of a business model can be a difficult endeavor, but is a necessary one in the world of business and entrepreneurship. Building on skills previously learned in EBGN 360, students will explore methods to sustains and scale a promising idea in any context (including commercial or for-profit, social or non-profit, governmental, etc.). This process is highly iterative and involves unveiling beneficiary needs, leading to an in-depth understanding of how real value is communicated, fabricated, and repeated. Students will work in teams to establish a shared purpose and solve problems with complementary skill-sets. This course is demanding, hands-on, and integrates knowledge from entrepreneurship, business, economics, and engineering. Students are expected to initiate and drive intensive beneficiary discovery by reaching and engaging with them outside of class.

(3 semester hours)

Prerequisite: EBGN 360

This course provides a scientific approach to developing and marketing new products; aspects that are often critical to the success within competing technology based industries. Students begin with an overview of core marketing ideals that lead them to develop prototypes of a new product design. They are then brought through the product development process in detail, learning new techniques along the way. The prototypes students develop will be used to gather data from prospective target markets and assess the viability of their designs in the marketplace.

(3 semester hours)

Prerequisite: EBGN 360

Effective leaders contribute significantly to their organizations’ performance. When they take advantage of a technological innovation or respond to a crisis, leaders often rely heavily on critical skills to communication their vision and coordinate the tasks of others. This course is about developing your unique leadership style and skill-set, whether it’s to lead a small engineering team or a large global corporation. Students will review key theories of leadership and examine the lessons learned from those who’ve applied them, and then synthesize and translate these lessons into specific behaviors that will enhance their ability to lead. This course discusses how generational shifts, economic, social, and political factors impact the workplace in ways that call for effective, quality leadership. It’s highly valuable to understand how to lead and motivate individuals of varying backgrounds and identities. Following a learning-by-doing approach, EBGN 577 has students engage in class discussions and case studies with hands-on a simulation of a leadership team facing a series of challenges.

(3 semester hours)