ENTREPRENEURSHIP CERTIFICATE

Exposes students to the concepts and techniques of management. Topics include marketing, strategy, finance, operations, organizational structure, and human relations. Guest lecturers describe aspects of actual organizations. Lectures and discussions.
(Fall Only)

This course delves into the various roles of intellectual property in biotechnology. In addition to providing a solid foundation in the fundamentals of intellectual property, the course will use case studies in biotechnology to explore in depth the interplay between specific scientific breakthroughs and intellectual property. An understanding of the science of biotechnology is critical for advanced understanding of the value and possibilities of biotechnology intellectual property.
(Fall only)

This course is an introduction to the field of judgment and decision-making, an interdisciplinary area that has emerged from the natural confluence of academic and applied interests across several disciplines, including cognitive science, economics, computer science, psychology, statistics, business, medicine, law, and philosophy. The field deals with questions of how people judge likelihood, value, and risk and how those judgments influence their decisions and actions. The intent is to introduce some of the key formal concepts that have shaped the field, including probability and utility theory and discuss them in light of how people actually do and should make judgments and choices. We will evaluate whether human behavior coheres with the qualitative prescriptions of the normative theories discussed and draw out implications for practical decision making such as consumer choice.

How has the digital economy changed market interactions? The goal of this course is to help you think critically, using economic theory, about the future of the digital economy. What are important economic activities now being conducted digitally?  How has digital implementation of these activities changed economists’ classical views and assumptions?  What are ways in which we can use economics to engineer “better” digital markets?  We will focus on several real-world markets (eg. eBay, Airbnb, Google advertising, Uber, Tinder, TaskRabbit) and topics (eg. market entry, pricing, search, auctions, matching, reputation, peer-to-peer platform design).
(Fall/Spring)

This course will use a combination of lectures and case discussions to prepare students to make decisions, both as entrepreneurs and venture capitalists, regarding the financing of rapidly growing firms. The course will focus on the following five areas:
1. Business valuation
2. Financing
3. Venture Capital Industry
4. Employment
5. Exit
(Fall only)

Systems Thinking links theory and practice to better understand and improve the world around us. It examines the nature of systems in nature, society, and engineering, and applies interdisciplinary lenses to explore important global challenges like those tied to climate change, energy, health, and supply chains. This holistic approach provides both a strategic and practical means to visualize, analyze, and design solutions to improve performance. Students will engage in activities to discover how complex patterns of behavior can arise from simple structures and simple rules and draw on these insights to develop a deeper understanding of how people, process, and purpose align to get things done. In sum, this course helps students see systems in a whole new light, develop mental toolkits for analyzing tough issues, model their structure and behavior, and understand how and why change happens.

Ways of making effective decisions in managerial situations, especially situations with a significant technological component; decision analysis; time value of money; competitive situations; forecasting; planning and scheduling; manufacturing strategy; corporate culture.
(Spring only)

Technological advances in brain science, big data, AI, VR, AR, mixed reality, blockchain, machine and deep learning have the potential to substantially change our work experiences, organizations and society. Collectively, these trends are referred to as the Future of Work. These changes can bring many positive benefits, such as new work options in the gig economy or new opportunities for start-ups. At the same time, such advances can raise ethical concerns and questions when technology is used to predict human behavior, replace employees, create a contingent and low-wage workforce, or drive autonomous vehicles among many other examples. Using a combination of case studies, projects, academic articles and current media materials, this class will examine three issues related to these new trends: how the world of work is changing, why these changes are important in relation to organizationsand entrepreneurship, and what skills are necessary to shape the future of work in ways that are sustainable, ethical and inclusive.
(Spring only)

“Sweet are the uses of Adversity,” said William Shakespeare. But then again, Shakespeare never had his ventures explode on him. Companies get into trouble all the time – they make the wrong products for the market, their sales fail to meet quota, their factories go on strike. But this course is not about the day-to-day problems that companies run into. It examines what action items a venture must do when its very existence is at stake. This is the situation where time is the critical element – there isn’t enough time to hire consultants, do research, hire new employees – it is when Top Management must make decisions often with insufficient data and a series of alternative options – all of which seem ‘sub-optimal.’ But one must be chosen.
(Spring only)

Entrepreneurial ecosystems represent one of the most recent developments for fostering economic development as leaders globally aspire to build successful ecosystems in their cities and regions. . This class will examine the emergence of entrepreneurial ecosystems in different cities and the various roles, functions and goals of entrepreneur support organizations (ESOs) in these contexts. These organizations support the development of social and cultural capital in entrepreneurs and act as intermediaries in connecting them with the existing resources of an ecosystem. At the same time, ESOs may engage in gatekeeping behavior that replicates or even furthers inequalities in access to resources for certain groups of entrepreneurs, such as women and minorities. The class will focus on different organizational practices and policies for building inclusive entrepreneurial ecosystems. Students will have the opportunity to visit local ESOs during the course to enhance their learning of ecosystems, ESOs and inclusive economic development. (Spring only).

A critical element of entrepreneurship, and indeed all new business development, is to be able to undertake insightful market research, including developing an ‘understanding’ of the customers of potential new products and services. This requires qualitative research methods, and in this course participants learn to utilize the most recent and effective methods. A feature of the course is that the curriculum also explores the academic origins of the methods, developed from the fields of sociology, anthropology, management, and industrial design. Participants undertake a meaningful market research project in teams or as individuals.

What is leadership? What makes a great leader? Can leadership be learned? Improved? This course explores various theoretical approaches to leadership using a combination of lectures and case-study analysis. Additionally, it aims at developing your personal leadership skills by using self-exploration and reflection, self-assessment instruments, role-play, and feedback from peers.

Environmental, business, and social opportunities are often seen as being at odds. This course is a hands-on, interactive journey to explore bringing an impactful idea for an environmental product/service/solution into the world and designing a business plan to do so. You will identify an environmental area of opportunity, learn how to focus on the problem before the solution, identify the key stakeholders including your users/customers, and build a business model. You will look at the triple bottom line, and learn new tools, best practices, and frameworks to breathe life into your solution and make it viable.

This course introduces students to social innovation and social entrepreneurship and engages them in identifying significant issues, problems, tools, strategies and models that drive bold solutions to complex contemporary problems. Enrollment limit is 40.
(Fall only)

This course brings design thinking into conversation with qualitative research methods, examining the elements of a comprehensive perspective of context. It introduces students to design research methods, ethnographic research methods, and how they work together. Students will learn how to use these methods to identify and engage in “deep hanging out” with the problem, gap or inefficiency in question. They will then move on to patient contextualized opportunity identification for meaningful innovation. By the end of the course, students will have developed a process for effective, through innovation context analysis. Relevant for designers of products, services, organizations , and experience.

Real estate development is the ongoing configuration of the built environment for society’s needs. The improved spaces in which we live, work, and play all started as ideas initiated and brought to fruition. Every real estate project, whether it’s making use of unused land or redeveloping existing properties, is in essence a separate business undertaking employing the three factors of production – land, labor, and capital – to create a new or changed product. These factors are coordinated by entrepreneurial management and delivered by teams.

The Entrepreneurship Practicum is an experiential, project-based course designed to help entrepreneurs turn their ideas into real ventures that can achieve “impact at scale.” This course is designed to help student venture teams to work in a structured way. It provides supportive mentorship and content so that students make significant progress on their venture and learn to go from idea to action. The course can now be found in CAB, but if you have any questions about it, please contact Sheila Haggerty(sheila_haggerty@brown.edu).