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The newspaper of The Johns Hopkins University June 21, 2004 | Vol. 33 No. 38
 
Part-time Engineering Students Get Option to Build Business Skills

By Phil Sneiderman
Homewood

Part-time engineering graduate students at Johns Hopkins will soon be able to broaden their studies with business education classes through a new certificate program in technical entrepreneurship and innovation.

The Whiting School of Engineering recently received a $23,000 grant from the National Collegiate Inventors and Innovators Alliance that will enable the school's Part-Time Programs in Engineering and Applied Science and the university's School of Professional Studies in Business and Education to offer five integrated courses to provide entrepreneurial education not found in most higher education engineering curricula.

According to Ed Addison, PTE Technical Entrepreneurship and Innovation Certificate Program coordinator, there is a growing need in business for engineers with technology and entrepreneurial skills. "By answering this vital need, Johns Hopkins is giving engineering professionals the option to become entrepreneurs, intrapreneurs and innovators," Addison said. An intrapreneur is a corporate executive who develops new enterprises within the corporation.

Expected to begin in September, the program will be offered at the Johns Hopkins Montgomery County Campus in Rockville, Md., to students with at least three years of work experience. Courses will focus on experiential education, creativity and curricular innovation. Upon finishing the program, all students will have completed a comprehensive business plan. Program administrators hope that some of these business plans will foster start-up companies.

Students who complete the program requirements will receive a certificate in technical entrepreneurship and innovation.

Amy Yerkes, associate dean of academic affairs at SPSBE, describes the new program as a proactive approach by Johns Hopkins to meet the needs of a growing number of entrepreneurs and intrapreneurs who are driving the region's economy.

"Professionals in our region's leading companies need to call upon a knowledge base that doesn't necessarily map to traditional academic departments or divisions," Yerkes said. "More than ever, that knowledge base is interdisciplinary, and by bringing together the strengths of our business and engineering programs, we can position entrepreneurs to successfully bring new ideas and products to the market."

For more information on the Technical Entrepreneurship and Innovation Certificate Program, call 301-294-7070 or go to www.jhu.edu/pte.

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