Today, we are confronted with many societal challenges such as climate change, increasing inequality of wealth and income, decreasing biodiversity, pollution, an aging population, etc. To address these complex, multi-dimensional problems, the combined effort of various actors is needed. This requires collaboration between start-ups, corporates in conjunction with governmental and non-profit organizations, as relevant sources of innovation. In brief, tackling these challenges requires innovation and an entrepreneurial mindset.
Throughout this elective package, you will learn to tackle those grand societal challenges by means of entrepreneurial competences. Entrepreneurial competences are situated in three domains: ideas & opportunities, resources and into action. Together, these competences enable you to act upon opportunities and ideas and transform them into value for others. The value that is created can be financial, social or cultural.
1ZK30, Entrepreneurial action for a better future 1
The first course is called Entrepreneurial action into a better future 1. During this course, you will be able to get a taste of entrepreneurship by working on the challenge of your choice, assess your strength and weaknesses with regards to entrepreneurial competences and use this assessment to formulate your own objectives. You will become familiar with challenge-based learning and develop the competences to become more active in your learning trajectory and take responsibility for your own learnings. This first course has a duration of one quartile, and is worth 5 ECTS.
1ZK40 & 1ZK50, Entrepreneurial action for a better future 2 & 3
The second and third course, are “deep dive” courses aimed to provide you with the opportunity to explore the challenge more in-depth and design validated solutions. You will work in the same team on the same challenge throughout both courses (i.e. Entrepreneurial Action for a better future 2 & 3). Throughout this challenge you will also work on your self-selected learning objectives. During this entrepreneurial journey, you will learn from mistakes, interact with stakeholders, and iterate and refine your solutions. This second and third course thus provides ample opportunity to interact and learn from various stakeholders and go through a process of trial-and-error learning. The two courses combined have a duration of a whole semester, and are each worth 5 ECTS.
The figure below summarizes the set-up of the elective package “Entrepreneurial action for a better future”.
Challenge-Based Learning
Both courses are organized according to the Challenge-Based Learning concept, where you can pick a challenge that matches your interests and education. The challenges you can choose from are related to application areas like engineering health and vitality, sustainable manufacturing, smart mobility, or smart cities. Within a project team you will define the problem you will focus on and decide on the technology you will rely on (like artificial intelligence, photonics, renewable energy systems etc. ) to contribute to solving the challenge. This also offers the opportunity to further develop in the specific technology or application area.
Innovation Space
Both courses are facilitated by TU/e innovation Space. Next to using the physical location and facilities of TU/e innovation Space, you are invited to become part of the community of TU/e innovation Space. After completing the second course, TU/e innovation Space offers you the possibility to continue working on your ideas and turn them into real-life startups or student teams.
Interesting links
More information
Want to know more? Contact dr. Annelies Bobelyn via the contact form below.