The Institute offers two courses in collaboration with the Center for Entrepreneurship in the College of Engineering.  More information about these classes can be found on CFE’s website.

Tech Commercialization

Reimagining Companies Through Innovation

“Re-imagining companies” introduces students to the fundamentals of how to evaluate a company and strategize its growth opportunities.  During the semester, students are led through the process of evaluating a firm, exploring its market environment, interviewing its leaders, and presenting recommendations for business improvements.  Students learn the same tools and skills that research associates develop when working with the Institute’s business assistance programs.

Through lectures, consulting role playing, and industry guest lectures, the class offers a new and more intense structure to the research associate experience, challenging students to think about the many dynamics that impact a business.  The course includes a foundation of industry and market analysis topics, including industry research and financial statement analysis.  Project managers from the Institute coach student teams as they evaluate actual companies from the Institute’s different programs. 

Student teams work through company financial statements and perform consulting interviews.  Students learn to explore a company’s history, organization, and business challenges.  The course provides a unique perspective on the complexity of business. The curriculum includes analytical tools for assessing a business and a framework for identifying solutions and priorities. These are critical skills for new graduates in any discipline.  

Universities are a major source of new technologies, and the University of Michigan hosts the largest research enterprise in the country.  The potential of moving new discoveries from the lab to application is significant, but the process poses challenges for researchers and industry.  Drawing on cutting-edge methods in technology commercialization, the Tech Commercialization challenges students to evaluate technologies developed by university researchers and propose commercial applications.  

Student teams are assigned a new technology and meet with its researcher to learn about its functioning.  From this starting point, the teams identify potential applications and research market potential.  Lecturers guide students through a commercialization framework that helps progress their technology through specific stages.  After many rounds of ideas and evaluation, teams finish the semester by presenting three potential applications for their technology.