Create your new business with interdisciplinary Minor in Entrepreneurship (MES)
The Minor in Entrepreneurship (MES) will give you a solid foundation starting “to think business minded”, understand products, services and market fit, marketing and sales and to start and run a company and understand corporate entities and their governance, contracts, intellectual property and human resources. A business is a complex construct, we will break it down in its elements and you learn how those elements work individually and how they are connected to each other.
At the end of this program you will have the ability to participate and understand communications of business leaders. Have the foundation to start your own business or become a valuable partner in existing businesses, for profit or social, business principles are very similar.
The program is jointly offered by the School of Management (SOM) and the School of Engineering and Technology (SET). The minor is taught by Faculty from SOM and SET and several external experts. The AIT Entrepreneurship Center is facilitating the minor and helps in all organization issues.
Curriculum
The Minor is a 12 credit program, organized in 4 Terms of each 3 credits each over a period of 8 weeks (includes exam) for each term.
The 3 courses in brief are:
1) “SM80.1704 Entrepreneurship and New Ventures” is a foundation course. At this course, the student groups each having a startup idea are formed. Offered in Term
2) “AT84.9001 In the Mind of the Entrepreneur – Part A and B” equips students and the startup groups with the necessary tools to build and run a startup company. Offered in Terms 2 and 3
3) “Entrepreneur in Action” applies the knowledge, methods and tools of the previous two courses to actually create a startup company until the stage to receive first funding and sell the first product. Such startups are ready to be incubated in the future AIT Incubator. Offered in Term 4
The Terms and the respective courses with learning outcomes are as follows:
Term 1 – August
“Entrepreneurship and New Ventures” SM80.1704
Course Objective: The objective of this course is to provide an understanding of the interrelationships between the management of new ventures and entrepreneurship in an innovation-driven and knowledge-based economic development. In addition, this course will enable students to design and present to venture capitalists/professional investors both, a business model canvas and a complete business plan for a new business venture. This course helps students to understand typical success and failure factors most frequently encountered by new business ventures in knowledge intensive industries and provide future entrepreneurs with strategic tools of planning the operations for the new company.
Learning Outcomes – Course work: The students on completion of this course would be able to:
Identify the characteristics of an entrepreneurial person and be able to distinguish an entrepreneurial personality from others;
Recognize the important role and contribution by entrepreneurs to technology transfer and economic development
Critically evaluate the relevant concepts in strategic management for founding a new business venture;
Recognize critical success and failure conditions commonly encountered in managing growth of the new business venture;
Recognize the important difference of the features and the structure of business model canvas and of a full business plan and know which on to choose for a lean venture start up;
Design a business model canvas for a lean venture start-up
Write a convincing business plan for the new venture’s growth;
Present convincingly and “sell” their individual new venture idea to potential investors.
Learning Outcomes – Progression towards a startup company: At the end of this course, students have formed groups and each of those groups has defined an idea for a potential startup. And those ideas are qualified to a level that a market exist.
Term 2 – October
“AT84.9001 In the Mind of the Entrepreneur – Part A”
Course Objective: This course is designed for students aiming at launching or joining a very early-stage company, students willing to pursue a career in early-stage investment, or those curious to understand how startups works. The objective of this course is to explain the key milestones a startup needs to achieve in order to successfully reach growth stage (series B). In parallel, students will get to apply the concepts taught on their own business idea and should be prepared to launch their company with a viable product.
Course Design: This course is the second course that makes up the Minor in Entrepreneurship. The course is divided into 2 parts, Part A and Part B. Each part carries 3 credits and is accessed and graded individually. Students will continue to work in groups formed in the previous course “Entrepreneurship and New Ventures”.
Learning Outcomes: Students on completion of this course would be able to:
After Part A of the course:
Define a customer profile
Create a prototype of product or service
Estimate the best price and pricing model for their business idea
Prepare a sales pitch
Oversee the development of a lead automation tool
Learning Outcomes – Progression towards a startup company: At the end of Part A of this course, students have a full validation, segmentation, and consumer evidence of the market for the product and startup idea of the group.
Term 3 – January
“AT84.9001 In the Mind of the Entrepreneur – Part B”
Course Objective: This course is designed for students aiming at launching or joining a very early-stage company, students willing to pursue a career in early-stage investment, or those curious to understand how startups works. The objective of this course is to explain the key milestones a startup needs to achieve in order to successfully reach growth stage (series B). In parallel, students will get to apply the concepts taught on their own business idea and should be prepared to launch their company with a viable product.
Course Design: This course is the second course that makes up the Minor in Entrepreneurship. Students will continue to work in groups formed previously.
Learning Outcomes: Students on completion of this course would be able to:
After Part B of the course:
Understanding company leadership and legal structures
Prepare basic documents such as cap tables, terms sheets, resolutions
Apply management and leadership skills
Convince investors to deploy capital in their business idea
Negotiate the main contract of small startup