How to encourage entrepreneurship and innovation through the development of technology-based projects in the context of university teaching?

Abstract

Entrepreneurship and innovation are two of the values demanded by firms today, and therefore the associated skills are enhanced in grades with a clear focus on entrepreneurship. The goal is that students who leave their classrooms were able to undertake and not only in the sense of creating a firm, but also to have the ability to innovate in any tasks that require professional performance. However, despite the clear need to promote entrepreneurship, there are few practical examples of how to teach this competence. In this paper, we present an educational experience based on the theoretical framework provided by the Triple Helix Model, according to which synergies in entrepreneurship are multiplied when are joined the three axes in the task of undertaking: institutional, university and business. Its goal has been to support students from the business idea to the creation of a technology-based company, as a way to enhance their entrepreneurial and innovative capacity. To carry it out has created a multidisciplinary working group in which at university axis level courses of different knowledge domain have been coordinated: engineering, social sciences and humanities.

Keywords

• entrepreneurship
• innovation
• Triple Helix Model
• entrepreneurial skills
• technology-based firms
• educational coordination