Content area
Full text
Abstract
The University of Florida Integrated Technology Ventures (ITV) program is designed to provide engineering and business students with an intense, immersive entrepreneurial experience. The ITV program builds upon successful UF industry interaction model programs such as the Integrated Product and Process Design (IPPD) program, where multidisciplinary student teams design and build authentic industry-sponsored products; the Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation (CEI), the Office of Technology and Licensing (OTL), and two university supported technology start-up incubator facilities. The students learn the entrepreneurial process as members of virtual companies led by volunteer CEOs. The companies are composed of a CEO, a business development team of two or more MBA students (coached by entrepreneurial faculty) and a multidisciplinary technology development team of up to six undergraduate engineers (coached by engineering faculty). The companies are supported by a variety of commercialization specialists and local technology incubators. The technology development teams participate in the two-semester IPPD course, which has been supplemented with entrepreneurship lectures. The companies are responsible for creating business plans and alpha system prototypes for entry in business plan competitions. In the pilot implementation of the ITV program, three virtual companies have been formed.
Historical evolution
Throughout history, the master-apprentice relationship has provided an unrivaled learning conduit. Recent emphasis on faculty-coached multidisciplinary student teams continues to renew this ancient, yet highly effective teaching model. While team-based problem-solving on well-constructed case studies can provide meaningful learning experiences, this approach can rarely generate the excitement, cooperation, finger-pointing, enthusiasm, frustration, creativity, discovery, despair and eureka associated with trying to solve real-world, open-ended, business and technical problems. Such projects require a guided, multidisciplinary, team-based approach. It is in this spirit that the Integrated Technology Ventures (ITV) program was launched in August 2003 at the University of Florida (UF)1. (Stanfill et al 2001 and Stanfill et al 2002)
The ITV program builds upon successful UF industry interaction model programs such as the Integrated Product and Process Design (IPPD) program, the Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation (CEI)2, the Office of Technology Licensing (OTL)3, and two university supported technology start-up incubator facilities4,5. ITV leverages key elements of the following highly successful programs to provide a new entrepreneurial education experience for engineering and business students. Funding for the UF ITV program has been...