Please email Bianca van Zundert, program coordinator, at for any additional information.
About the Courses
In the Corporate Innovation and Entrepreneurship Program, experienced professors and entrepreneurs teach the skills and processes necessary for bringing innovations to market via practical, real-world projects. The program also teaches the personal skills that are critical to business success such as networking, sales presentations, and leading teams.
By the end of the course, students will have created a fully developed project plan supporting their innovation in their existing corporation or in a new venture.
The program comprises four courses:
- Entrepreneurial Thought & Action
- Technology Commercialization Strategy
- Technology Commercialization Workshop
- Entrepreneurial Business Planning
Format
Each of the four courses is seven weeks long,
together spanning October to May, with one intake per year. The next class
starts October 2008 and runs until the end of May 2009.
The courses involve one week of intensive hands-on classes and weekly videoconferences with the Tepper School of Business in Pittsburgh. These are held at Education City in Doha, outside of business hours.
With its decades of experience Carnegie Mellon has built a worldwide network of successful entrepreneurs, managers and investors, who conduct guest lectures in Doha and provide students with valuable personal advice.
The timeline of a typical course is:
| Activity | Format | |
| Wk 1 | Introduction, lectures and project kick-off | One week of full time classes |
| Wk 2 | Project discussion | Videoconference and in-class |
| Wk 3 | Case study | Videoconference and in-class |
| Wk 4 | Visiting entrepreneur | Videoconference and in-class |
| Wk 5 | Project discussion | Videoconference and in-class |
| Wk 6 | Case study | Videoconference and in-class |
| Wk 7 | Visiting entrepreneur | Videoconference and in-class |
Scheduling
The program is a combination of in class, distance learning and
videoconferencing. Each course starts with a FAST Week where participants are
required to be in class from 1:30 PM to 6 PM Sunday to Thursday. This is
followed by six weeks of distance learning and where every Wednesday at 6 PM there will be a videoconference between the students and the professors, Venture Capitalists, Entrepreneurs. In between the videoconferences students will have assignments and team work where they can discuss topics using a discussion form.
Course Content
The program consists of four courses as follows:
- Entrepreneurial Thought and Action -
This course teaches how entrepreneurs think, generate ideas, identify and screen opportunities and covers the 3 components of entrepreneurship – opportunity, resources, and team. At the end of the course, students know the necessary ingredients for business success.
- Technology Commercialization and Business Development Strategy -
This course focuses on the commercialization of disruptive technologies and business models. Students will gain a perspective of how innovations are brought to the market and positioned for successful launch and growth. Students will study cases of previous successful and unsuccessful companies.
- Technology Commercialization and Business Development Workshop - In this course, students are divided into teams to develop commercialization strategies for ideas generated by them or provided to them by the faculty. Each student team is expected to develop a mini business plan. The students learn by doing and getting feedback from each other, from the professor and from entrepreneurs.
- Entrepreneurial Business Planning - This course teaches students how to develop a business plan. Includes financial analysis, building the business and revenue model, intellectual property, financing sources (equity and other), and corporate forms.