Just eight months old, USC’s Mark and Mary Stevens Institute for Technology Commercialization
has already begun enrolling students, undergraduate and graduate, for innovative
multidisciplinary programs in entrepreneurship.
Venture capitalist and USC alumnus Mark Stevens funded SITeC with
a $22 million gift announced November 11, 2004. In the short time
since, SITeC has placed two curricula in place and will begin training
students in all aspects of turning research into products when USC
classes begin August 22.
“We are proud that SITeC has moved with entrepreneurial speed to begin its academic
mission,” said Yannis Yortsos, dean of the USC Viterbi School of Engineering.
Peter Beerel, an associate professor in the USC Viterbi School of Engineering
who is SITeC’s faculty director of educational programs, said that SITeC’s initial
undergraduate and graduate offerings are ambitious curricula that “are based
on courses from both the USC Marshall School of Business and the Viterbi School
of Engineering. They cover all aspects — economic, technological, legal and
management — of commercializing new engineering ideas.”
At the undergraduate level, a new minor in Engineering Technology
Commercialization includes a Deans’ Seminar in
Entrepreneurship, jointly taught by the USC Marshall and Viterbi
schools, that will present highly distinguished guest speakers in a
variety of fields of engineering and entrepreneurship speaking about
their commercialization experience. "We hope that the direct contact
with men and women who have done it — who have bridged the gap between
the lab and the market — will encourage and embolden students," Beerel
said.
The minor includes required business courses in technology
entrepreneurship, cases in new ventures, and an elective in
business plans for the would-be entrepeneur. The required engineering
courses include engineering economy and engineering law, the latter
covering issues from business formation to intellectual property.
Finally, the curriculum includes elective courses in specific areas of
commercialization, such as biomedical devices that discusses the
regulatory aspects of introducing new medical devices to the market
place.
The minor is open to students in all USC schools, though the Deans’ Seminar requires
course approval for non-engineers.
At the graduate level, SITeC offers a certificate program, which will teach students
with engineering or other degrees how to evaluate ideas and inventions, and also,
said Beerel, “giving would-be entrepreneurs the confidence to succeed.” Required
courses include such offerings as “Introduction to New Ventures,” taught by the Marshall
School, and the Viterbi School's “Strategic Management of Technology."
The "Introduction to New Ventures" course includes a "live case study" in which
teams
of engineers and business students will evaluate, analyze, and develop recommendations
for an existing USC technology-based start-up. The graduate certificate also includes
electives in engineering project management, managing engineering teams, and business
plan development.
The graduate program is available to both on-campus students as well as off-campus
students via the Viterbi School's innovative Distance Education Network (DEN).
http://viterbi.usc.edu/sitec.
"Our mission is to foster the entrepreneurial and
commercialization spirit in USC engineers and scientists
and we’ve just begun,” said Beerel, “Come back and see what we’ll have
in two years.”
For right now, though, Beerel urged students to check out the program on the
SITeC website at
