Innovation and entrepreneurship

Course leader: Cristian Andriesei

Home Institution: “GHEORGHE ASACHI” TECHNICAL UNIVERSITY OF IASI, ROMANIA

Course Overview

This course aims at developing the entreprenurial skills and creative thinking among the youth, preparing them for a better insertion in a society built around innovation (Industry 4.0). Due to its high compexity, the course covers multiple aspects such as creative techniques, IP fundamentals, business plans, ethics, capital assessment, quality management, etc.

Learning Outcomes

By the end of this course students will be able to:

  1. Formulate creative themes for new product development;
  2. Protect company assets by proper IP identification and registration;
  3. Identify creative solutions for better market positioning;
  4. Apply strategic thinking for better decision-making support.

Course Content

  1. Intellectual Property (IP): concept, classes of applications, law protection
  2. IP business assets: identification, development, valuation
  3. Creative techniques in Inventics
  4. Innovation management
  5. Intellectual capital management
  6. New product development
  7. Quality management
  8. Business plans
  9. Capital assessment for entrepreneurs
  10. Business and IP ethics

Instructional Method

  • Lectures
  • Case studies
  • Brainstorming
  • Group projects
  • Day-to-day homeworks

Required Course Materials

All course topics are based on the best technical and business books, enriched with personal entrepreneurship experience. Using other resources/references is not mandatory.

Assessment

The assessment is based on a 40 – 40 – 20 fomula, as follows:

  • 40% is represented by regular homeworks given after every course, usually consisting of simple or more complicated questions and real life scenarios, all solved independently by the students;
  • 40% is represented by a scientific article, focused on applying a creative technique to a particular real product available on the market or scientific / business direction to identify new creative themes, that could be proposed for presentation at an Inventics conference (pairs of 3 students per article are allowed) ;
  • 20% quantifies the activity, interaction and feedback provided during the course