This course focuses on core concepts related to strategy and financial management. Strategic frameworks are discussed and financial accounting and analysis fundamentals are introduced. Frameworks for entrepreneurial financial decision making (both from the firm and investor perspective) are considered.

The course examines core concepts in distinct areas through three modules: 
(1) organizations, leadership, and human capital
(2) implementing radical technology change
(3) engineering ethics

Organization, leadership and human capital focuses on the attributes of effective leadership and the tactical operation of start-up companies, implementing radical technological change centers on disruptive technologies and their adaptation in the marketplace, and ethics treats the issues that arise in small start-up organizations with an emphasis on the interface of ethics and environmental, health and safety issues.

The primary objective of the course is to train students on tools, skills, and behaviors required for effective management of complex engineering, research, and business development projects. Although the course will be framed in the context of early-stage technology companies, the skills and principles will be applicable to businesses of any size and maturity. The course is organized around three actionable themes: project management, team management, and decision making. 

Students will discuss primary sources to underpin basic understanding, and draw on relevant business cases as examples of what can go wrong and right with these critical aspects of engineering management. We will use industry-grade software tools that are used by managers to keep their complex projects moving forward and their strategic decision making well informed. Explicit relationships will be drawn between the nuts and bolts of engineering management and higher-level portfolio and strategic management of a technology company.

Entrepreneurship as a “structured process for problem solving without regard to resources currently controlled”. With centuries of innovative research, teaching, and learning, Brown has always been fertile ground for entrepreneurial thinking. Generations of Brown students and alumni have long pursued ambitious solutions to challenging problems, either through creating new and innovative products or through the reapplication of existing tools or technologies in new environments. 

This class will focus on identifying unmet needs and gaps in the marketplace. Through a combination of top-down and bottom-up research, students develop a robust understanding of these needs to develop hypothetical solutions that create real and tangible value for your customers; lean Venturing methodology to prototype, test, and iterate our hypotheses in order to validate (or invalidate!) our assumptions.

This course (ENGN-2160) along with its associated course ENGN-2150, form a two-course sequence that develops your understanding of how technology and innovation can underpin high-value businesses and products. A key focus is how to create viable high-growth-potential ventures either based on emerging science and technology, or around an unmet meet in the marketplace.

Students will gain a better understanding of the political, social and cultural dynamics that influence entrepreneurial enterprises in different world regions. Meetings will be arranged with high technology companies and their venture arms, academic incubators, investment professionals, legal professionals, government officials, entrepreneurs, and other university faculty and students. 

The semester becomes a global entrepreneurship and innovation "laboratory" where students experience and take part in guest lectures from experts working in other countries. Classroom discussions, student presentations, papers and readings will be used to focus and further understand the globalization dynamic and its relationship to entrepreneurship.

Students complete two graduate level electives in the fall and spring terms, S/NC option available. Brown University elective options can be viewed at https://cab.brown.edu/; courses subject to change per term.  Typical areas of study: ENGN, ECON, ENVS, DATA, CSCI, etc. Graduate level courses at Brown are 1000+

For the Fall term ONLY: Cross-registration opportunity to complete the graduate level elective at Harvard University Faculty of Arts & Sciences (FAS) or The Rhode Island School of Design (RISD).