Entrepreneurship and Technology Commercialization Concentration
Entrepreneurship is about opportunity. About finding and about creating opportunity. About your opportunity and learning to take advantage of it. What drives the entrepreneur? The excitement of finding a solution to a problem, the satisfaction of building an organization capable of delivering that solution and the possibility of creating wealth. The entrepreneurship concentration in the NC State MBA program offers all graduate students the opportunity to engage in all stages of company formation and growth. Supported by a network of entrepreneurs, investors and service providers, students embrace the real challenge of starting the next generation of high growth ventures.
This is an applied curriculum where students first engage with existing young firms that are dealing with the challenges of growth and competition. Later, MBAs are teamed with other graduate students, including scientists and engineers, to build real, high growth startups. During this hands-on experience, students learn the latest in entrepreneurial management techniques and develop a holistic view of the organization. The skills students learn prepare them to create growth and value through start-ups or within the many established firms that are increasingly seeking innovation. We train the business leaders – entrepreneurs, CEOs and board members – of tomorrow.
By offering a minor in business management, we encourage Masters and PhD candidates from all disciplines; both technical and non-technical to enroll. Scientists and engineers learn how to transform their innovations into market opportunities. The strength of these opportunities depends on the multidisciplinary expertise and networks resident within our teams. Therefore, each team is a mixture of MBA and non-MBA students and all are essential for success.
The Entrepreneurship Concentration is the primary teaching arm of the college's Technology Entrepreneurship and Commercialization (TEC) Initiative. Since 1995, TEC has graduated over 250 students. Our efforts have helped to raise more than $140 million in funding for clients and new ventures created through the class and have thereby accounted for the creation of more than 250 new jobs in the Research Triangle area. (See TEC Successes) TEC’s process-based approach to new company creation has been benchmarked and adopted by scholars, companies and entrepreneurs around the world.