PROMOTING ENTREPRENEURIAL PRACTICE BY CRAMMING A PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT PROJECT OVER A WEEKEND

Abstract

As the definition of the engineering profession continues to witness a disruptive transformation in the labour market, engineering schools are beginning to recognize the need to facilitate a new approach to education. Such a disruption has lead to the explosion of entrepreneurship education within the boarders of engineering schools in attempt to generate the talent and skills of the future engineer. There is however a gap – engineering schools were never designed to deliver entrepreneurship education. Success in this endeavour relies on a new approach to teaching; one that is founded in a group-based, experiential learning environment. At the University of New Brunswick, entrepreneurship education is a core element offered to all our engineering students. The following article proposes the CRAM – a two day hackathon designed to introduce students to a cohesion of contemporary entrepreneurship practices to accelerate group formation and acquire entrepreneurship skill sets using an inductive teaching approach. The delivery of the CRAM is discussed in detail, along with feedback from the student participants.