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NDSU and UND have a collaborative program to offer students of any major an ''''Entrepreneurship Certificate'''.' This certificate is earned upon completion of five 2 & 300 level entrepreneurship courses. As NDSU does not have a proper Entrepreneurship department, the certificate is offered through the College of Business. In earning the certificate, students can expect to learn about intellectual property, management, marketing, accounting, design thinking, and venture capital- all with the twist of being specifically designed for providing students with the most important areas of those fields they'll need to thrive in a start-up.
It is worth noting that NDSU currently markets itself as a research university.. particularly, a "Student Driven, Land Grant, Research University." Nowhere in the mission statement, core values, or vision of the university will one find the words 'innovation' or 'entrepreneurship' - not explicitly a bad thing, but perhaps something that can be remedied nonetheless! Students at NDSU are provided opportunities to perform '''undergraduate research''', should they be proactive enough to seek out the correct resources. While this research is certainly innovative, the objective of much of the research is not explicitly to teach the students innovative or entrepreneurial thinking- it is to perform research and generate data. How much the students learn to be innovative themselves in these environments depends on the student in question.Efforts are also hampered by many departments closing off lab space to other majors. This is changing slowly and resources are expanding. For example, the library just obtained a new Makerbot 3d printer available to all majors at the rate of $3 an hour.
Amongst all of the student clubs and groups that perform innovative and entrepreneurial activities, the author is most intimately familiar with a program known as the '''Bison Microventure. '''BµV is a program that brings students from multiple disciplines- primarily Engineering and Biosciences but not exclusive of other majors- together to solve problems and develop a product. The group, structured into 8 separate teams of 2-3 students each, provides students the opportunity to lead and manage their own ''de facto ''mini-research teams, complete with all of the resource, expertise, and intellectual property responsibilities that come with it. BµV has been successful in generating multiple patent disclosures, numerous presentations at national events, and victories in local innovation competitions.
NDSU is fortunate enough to be located in a community with a strong innovative culture. There are a number of events such as TedX, Health Pitch, and a large number of events put on by Emerging Praire such as start up weekend, start up drinks, one million cups and many others. Many student clubs on campus also are innovating but not dealing with the business side of things and there are a number of business clubs such as the entrepreneaurs club but the two rarely connect.
= Faculty Innovation and Entrepreneurship<br/> =