Entrepreneurship skills for Engineers

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Entrepreneurship skills for Engineers

• Dr Kate Exley
• February 2005

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What are Entrepreneurship Skills?

• Are the skills -
• Transferable skills
• Employability skills
• Business skills
• Graduate skills
• Engineering skills?

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Seven important skillsTom Byers, Technology
Ventures ProgrammeStanford University

• Creativity and Opportunity Evaluation
• Real-time Strategy and Decision Making
• Comfort with Change and Chaos
• Teamwork

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Seven Important skills (continued)

• Evangelism, Selling, Negotiation, and Motivation
  through Influence and Persuasion
• Oral and Written Communication
• Basics of Start-Up Finance and Accounting

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Classification of Entrepreneurial attributes

• 1. Intellectual skills
• 2. Professional skills
• 3. Transferable (Key) skills
• And (?)
• 4. Knowledge awareness of
• 5. Attitudes

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Industry wants Engineers with Entrepreneurial
skills

• Which can include
• Ability to recognise an opportunity
• Research skills
• Decision making and goal setting
• Planning
• Critical thinking
• Adaptability and flexibility
• Communication and team-working etc.

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BUT..

• Do they also want
• Rule breakers
• Risk takers
• Lateral thinkers
• Norm challengers?

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The Challenge

• To help students develop their entrepreneurial
  skills in conjunction with
• Personal management skills
• Control
• Empathy with an employers viewpoint etc.
• Gives students greater choice
• Intrapreneurship or Entrepreneurship