Students, who work on Capstone project to complete their degrees, always dedicate their time to design and develop an idea or a concept to a prototype, demonstrating its working at the end of the semester; however, these students hardly get any chance to assess if there is any Intellectual property associated with their project and also is it a viable technology to start-up a business around it. So, it is very important to teach these students how to do a preliminary technology evaluation and build a business model canvas, exposing them to a great learning technology transfer/entrepreneurial tool. After learning these concepts, students will be asked to assess their project in a step-by-step process and present not only the technical part but also the business prospects of their work and thus earning an extra credit as an incentive.
== Involving Students in Grades 9-13 ==
There are a large number of students who compete in very innovative STEM competitions on campus, but are unaware that what they are doing is innovative. A solution to this problem is to create a semester long Innovation Challenge that has teams develop innovative solutions to a real world problem and then present it to a panel of judges and receive awards and prizes. Part of the challenge is creating a prototype of their solution, but also creating a business model canvas and trying to find a way to successfully market their product. This approach focuses on improving students' design-thinking, entrepreneurial and communication skills while defining for them what the real meaning of innovation is. It is crucial that we develop students interest in innovation and entrepreneurship at a young age in order to create a strong I&E culture on our college campus.
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