Organization:KEEN Network

Overview

" The Kern Entrepreneurship Education Network (KEEN) is a collaboration of U.S. universities that strive to instill an entrepreneurial mindset in undergraduate engineering and technology students. Graduates of KEEN schools will be prepared to identify new technology-based business opportunities in their engineering disciplines. This network of colleges creates synergy between member institutions that takes advantage of the network’s collective faculty in a manner that transcends an individual university’s status."

Purpose

" KEEN’s mission is to graduate engineers who will contribute to business success and in the process transform the American workforce."

The KEEN Program was established for three reasons: 

1. To support the development of entrepreneurial minded engineers who impact the U.S. economy.
2. Because higher education should foster an engineering entrepreneurial mindset, more than delivering only technical skills.
3. To enable individuals to pursue individual fulfillment and live a high impact life through entrepreneurial minded engineering.

Distinct Difference From Other Offerings

The following  are the four cornerstones of the program:

1) Gaining a business acumen. 

2) Understanding of customer engagement. 

3) Practice and understanding of technical fundamentals.

4)Gaining a understanding of societal values. 

Through the educational process, these cornerstones are integrated in two ways: through the development of skills, and by fostering an engineering entrepreneurial mindset. 

KEEN provides institutional grants, topical grants, and small group grants:

• Institutional grant proposals contain, but are not limited to, cultural, curricular, and extracurricular components such as faculty development and activities that foster relationships between colleges within the university, initiatives that engage the entire engineering student body, etc. This grant should aim toward permanent institutional change consistent with the broad mission of the KEEN Program.
• Topical grant proposals contain a single, sometimes tangible, proposed outcome. In contrast to institutional grants, topical grants are not intended to create institutional change; rather, they should provide a deliverable that will jointly further our shared mission and is readily transferable to other members of the Network.
• Small group grant proposals are intended to stimulate thought and discussion within the Network. The PI for a Small Group Grant must be a faculty member from an institution with an active institutional grant.

Sponsor

The Kern Family Foundation, a private, independent grant-making organization based in Waukesha, Wis. In 2006, the Kerns sold the balance of the business and directed a significant portion of the profits to grow the Foundation.