Entrepreneurship & Sust Innov (ENSI)

Reviews and analyzes entrepreneurship, creativity and innovation-related concepts, models, and tools, and how those can be used within a variety of entrepreneurial and organizational environments. Offers experiential exercises to enhance the students’ entrepreneurial mindset including creativity, adaptability and self-efficacy. Introduces students to design methodology to enable them to formulate innovative solutions to complex problems. Students work collaboratively in teams and demonstrate their competency through various exercises and projects.

Provides an overview of fundamental accounting and finance concepts and tools relevant to entrepreneurs and executives. Reviews accounting and finance basics with focus on extracting practical insights. Explores startup financing strategies from bootstrapping to various types of debt and equity financing. Students learn to develop financial projections for a new project or venture and determine financing needs and financing strategies.

Explores entrepreneurial leadership, a mindset and a skillset, that has been shown to be highly effective in various organizational settings. Incorporates the leadership views from Ignatian spirituality focusing on self-awareness, ingenuity, love, and heroism. Topics also include vision, team-building, ethical decision-making, career-planning, and goal-setting, among others. Students meet with their individual mentor(s) to discuss professional development goals, business ideas, and personal milestones to prepare for the post-program new venture launch or a career transition.

Reviews the importance and role of corporate entrepreneurship in building and sustaining innovation within organizations. Examines the challenges and opportunities for managers, employees, and organizations in creating and maintaining a culture and organizational design that foster entrepreneurial endeavors, e.g., corporate renewal, startups, and spinouts, etc. Utilizes case studies to obtain specific lessons about what types of corporate entrepreneurial efforts (e.g., policies, strategies, practices) have been effective (and not so effective) and what individuals can do as change agents to lead their organizations be more entrepreneurial.

Introduces students to innovative growth marketing strategies and methods employed by startups and other early-stage or financially-constrained companies. Students get their hands dirty designing advertisements and analyzing performance of their actions. For students interested in working for larger, more established businesses, the course will equip them with a set of lean, low-cost and creative marketing tools. Also discussed are effective practices and processes for selling products and services to corporations.

Examines the legal framework and issues pertaining to early-stage and small companies, including but not limited to choice of entity and entity formation, corporate governance issues (operating agreements, shareholder agreements, bylaws, etc.), review of leases, basic independent contractor agreement, employment agreement, and vendor agreement. Also explored are intellectual property matters including patent law basics, trademark searches and filing processes, copyright laws, and licensing agreement.

Presents an overview of Earth’s critical environmental problems and issues including the global climate change, air pollution, water pollution, biodiversity loss, plastic waste, and deforestation, among others. Discussed are physical and chemical processes such as atmospheric processes, the greenhouse effect, oceanic circulations, ecosystem, and other relevant scientific concepts. Examined are impacts on water resources, agriculture, food, poverty, inequality, and biodiversity. Also discussed are opportunities for climate adaptation and resilience, e.g., climate adaptation strategies, policies, and planning at the community, city, national, and global levels to reduce and manage risk.

Explores the major statutes and policies used, at both the federal, state and local levels, to protect humans and the environment against exposure to harmful substances, including the Clean Air Act, Clean Water Act, Superfund, the Resource Conservation & Recovery Act, and laws designed to regulate toxic substances. Examines the challenges of global air pollution, including climate change and ozone depletion. Looks also at alternative legal mechanisms for advancing environmental policies (such as voter initiatives and common-law actions) and the role of market mechanisms in addressing environmental problems. Analyzes the roles of the local and federal governments and businesses to dealing with environmental challenges and explores resources available to entrepreneurs. Also addressed are environmental ethics, environmental rights, and environmental justice.

Explores the latest applications and developments in sustainable and clean technologies in various sectors including in energy, agriculture, transportation, housing, water, food, and consumer goods. Reviews the science and economics of the leading technology solutions such as solar energy, fuel cell and energy storage as well as the developments in the underlying sciences in material science, chemistry, agricultural sciences, and microbiology among others. Examines the recent investments in sustainable solutions to identify future technological and business trends and opportunities. Prerequisite: ENSI 6210.

Explores the development process of innovative sustainable products, services and processes. Dives into the principles of effective and efficient execution of product, service, or process development processes. Examines how products or services are designed, brought to market, and scaled as well as how certain processes are designed and adopted inside an organization. Introduces students to prominent theories, best practices, and important special cases to provide them with a practical understanding of practices adopted in the industry. The class will entail lecture, case analyses, class discussions, and a small project. Prerequisite: ENSI 6210.

Working individually or in small teams, students will work either on a startup idea or corporate project. Students interested in working on a new venture must submit a description of the idea, its technical merit, and the ability of the student to execute the project for evaluation and approval. Once the idea is approved, students work on the idea under the guidance of the faculty and advisors and strive to make significant progress. Students interested in working with a corporation will work on a project of strategic importance and make a measurable impact. The MSENSI staff will try to match students' interests with the needs of corporations participating in the program. All students will provide status reports on a regular basis and receive faculty and/or mentor coaching during the capstone course. Students will provide a written report and oral presentation on their achievement at the conclusion of the semester.

Students continue to work on their capstone project from the spring semester under the guidance of faculty members and advisors. Students will provide a written report and oral presentation of the completed project at the conclusion of each semester.