The New Venture Design Experience: How UPRM Made Business and Engineering Students Collaborate in Entrepreneurial Projects by Pairing Existing Courses.

Students are attracted to innovation and entrepreneurship. However, it is challenging for them to take courses in I&E due to their already busy curriculums. This paper describes the New Venture Design Experience, a one-year interdisciplinary program that pairs core and elective courses between the colleges of Engineering and Business Administration. The program aims to provide the time and resources for students to venture into their own entrepreneurial projects during a one year period, within the classroom setting. Students will first take either Design Thinking, a course that teaches human-centered design with a project-based learning approach; or Consumer Behavior, a course that teaches students about the different factors that influence consumer behavior and the decision process. Each team has members in both courses, which continue working together throughout the year. In the second semester, team members work on their ventures through the Product Design, Capstone, or Technology-Based Entrepreneurship courses. By the end of the program, they will have developed a working prototype, created a crowdfunding pitch, and submitted to an entrepreneurial competition. This leads teams to start impacting society in a positive manner by providing solutions to real-life problems.