A mini-course designed to provide students with a basic education in the commercialization of technology, entrepreneurship and the starting of new business ventures began Thursday night at the Amos Tuck School of Business. Enrollment in "Introduction to Entrepreneurship" is open to Tuck students as well as other members of the Dartmouth community.
"We felt there was a gap between Tuck advanced entrepreneurship and what they were asking first-year students to do [in the first year]. Those were the ones who we felt would benefit most," said Gregg Fairbrothers, director of the Dartmouth Entrepreneurial Network.
"Introduction to Entrepreneurship" will address fundamental areas of conceptualizing and launching a new business, such as concept development, market and competetive assessment, business plan development, team building, financing and investor presentations, and execution.
This is the fourth year that Tuck is offering the course, each year with a higher enrollment. From the first year to third year the number enrolled increased more than four-fold, with 180 students taking the course last year, Fairbrothers said.
While the course aims to educate students involved in various disciplines, the only students who are eligible for course credit are Thayer School of Engineering students enrolled in the Masters of Engineering Management program.
"We opened the course up to MEM students and the Dartmouth community as a whole. This is a way to scale it and get everyone together," Fairbrothers said. "What's been particularly interesting is that it puts together the Tuck and Thayer students with a lot of other students who have the ideas. It puts together a way to lever up their execution ability."
In addition to Fairbrothers' input, a few professors from the Tuck and Thayer schools helped develop the course, Fairbrothers said.
The course will conclude with group projects, in which teams of two to five students craft their ideas into business proposals and present them to experienced people in the business world.
"The basic idea here is that we want people to be encouraged to think in terms of ideas and innovations that can be useful and valuable," Fairbrothers said. "We want them to know what to do with their ideas when they have them. It doesn't necessarily mean start a business, it could mean to license it and it could mean to kill it. There's a process you go through -- that's what we want to take people through."
The course will combine lectures and visiting speakers, workshop sessions, and readings. Fairbrothers emphasized that the course would incorporate both basic and higher level aspects.
"There's a routine that we build around. It's a combination of guest lecturers such as layers and venture capitalists, high level stuff, and the nuts and bolts -- the toolkit," he said.
The course is held on Thursdays from 4:45 to 6:45 p.m. through March 2 and is sponsored by the Tuck, the Dartmouth Medical School, and the Dartmouth Entrepreneurial Network.
