KEENzine1

ISSUE ONE 7 KEEN Educational Framework Two diagrams on the following pages describe the KEEN program’s educational framework for instilling an entrepreneurial mindset. This mindset is comprised of attitudes and perspectives that guide an engineer to create value for customers, the economy, and society. The first diagram is “Engineering Skills from Opportunity to Business.” These skills are essential for business development within existing companies, as well as for new ventures. A student at a KEEN university develops these skills through a program of curricular and extra-curricular experiences. Alongside the development of work-ready skills, KEEN fosters in engineering undergraduates the attributes contained in the second diagram, “Fostering an Entrepreneurial Mindset.” Institutions that use these documents as a roadmap for developing KEEN programs will transform individual engineers – and ultimately the U.S. workforce. Engineering Skills fromOpportunity to Business (pages 8-9) When identifying the core elements of engineering, most educators describe the design cycle (see column 3). This model is pervasive in engineering higher education, frequently taught to freshmen and used as a model for capstone senior design. Designing and testing from provided specifications reduce the profession to mere order-taking. Engineers who take this approach potentially fall short in creating products, services, and infrastructure that are most valuable to customers, the economy, and society. Many institutions have addressed this concern by incorporating problem-based learning, creativity, and ideation. They adopt curriculum and pedagogies to teach students problem-defining skills and encourage creative solutions to open-ended problems. In the best examples, students are taught to evaluate solutions for their technical feasibility, customer value, societal benefits, and economic viability (see column 2). While this broadens an engineer’s skill set, a wide gap remains between what is taught and what is needed to create jobs. Alone, columns 2 and 3 could be termed “innovation.” An engineer defines a problem, formulates a solution, and develops a functional prototype. However, completed in isolation, without an awareness of a larger context, innovations can be useless. Educating students to identify opportunities (see column 1) beyond the mere design cycle and problem definition differentiates the KEEN program from most engineering educational initiatives. KEEN students learn skills associated with opportunity recognition and initial market evaluation. They learn how a preliminary business model identifies relationships between customers, suppliers, distributors, and core business. Students are taught how to communicate engineering solutions in economic terms. Such skills, when practiced in a culture of entrepreneurship, foster an entrepreneurial mindset. Fostering an Entrepreneurial Mindset (pages 10-11) An entrepreneurial mindset begins with an enterprising attitude. Among several student outcomes identified on the second framework, a graduate of a KEEN program should be able to define problems, opportunities, and solutions in terms of value creation. By the time they enter the workforce, they should be able to anticipate technical developments by interpreting surrounding societal and economic trends. The goal is to produce engineers equipped with an entrepreneurial mindset, coupled with engineering thought and action, expressed through professional skills, and founded on character. When an entrepreneurial mindset is combined with technical engineering capability, the result is a powerhouse of value creation.