Integrate the tools and concepts from the specialization courses to develop a comprehensive business plan. Choose to enhance new venture concepts previously explored in specialization courses, or develop a new concept for this capstone project. Develop a comprehensive, customer-validated business model and create an investor pitch for the concept. With this course, students experience a sampling of the ideas and techniques explored in the University of Maryland's master's degree in technology entrepreneurship, an innovative 100% online program. Learn more at http://mte.umd.edu.
Information Session
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From the course by University of Maryland, College Park
Entrepreneurship Capstone
76 ratings
University of Maryland, College Park
76 ratings
Course 4 of 4 in the Specialization Entrepreneurship: Launching an Innovative Business
Meet the Instructors
Dr. James V. GreenDirector of Entrepreneurship Education
Maryland Technology Enterprise Institute
Hi and welcome to our online information session for
the University of Maryland's Master of Technology Entrepreneurship.
I'm James Green I'm the director of the program.
I also teach within the program and
we have a line up to share with you a little bit of the background
of the details and some of the next steps to engage in the Master's program.
To start with, why a master of technology entrepreneurship?
We think it's certainly a timely time for a degree, and
a timely time for an online degree of this topic.
One it's certainly a revolutionary era in education and venture creation.
But within education at the University of Maryland we've been teaching
entrepreneurship for about 15 years but out of my department.
But we also have been engaged in venture creation and incubation of startup
companies, and technology startup companies for about 25 years.
But what we're seeing now through technology and other resources, and
just the general cost of doing business dropping,
that new opportunities are emerging.
That we can do new things in new ways and that we can effectively
connect with students worldwide, leveraging a technology platform.
We also see, that with this Master's, you can increase your knowledge,
and your global relationships.
A key reason that we're offering the course, and the programs,
exclusively online, are those global relationships.
We believe that there's a great value in being in a classroom here in College Park,
Maryland, with other individuals from different backgrounds, and nationalities.
But, we argue there may be even greater value of doing that online,
where you're in a classroom and you have students that are from the US and
Africa and Europe and Asia, all in the classroom at the same
time and simultaneously living and working in regions around the world.
We think it's a great platform for being able to connect with prospective advisors,
partners, as well as potential co-founders.
We also see the degree as offering great career marketability and mobility.
Our expectation is that many of our students will launch new companies
as a result of the experience in the program, or
may already be working in technology startup ventures and
are looking to improve and enhance their success via the program.
Others may further their knowledge and their experience by going into a corporate
setting or government setting at non profit arenas, etc.
And so we see the skills that we're building here are equally relevant in
those arenas.
And it's a further point of differentiation versus some of the other
master's programs that are out there.
When we look at what we have to offer,
I think our number one resource is our faculty.
And we're bringing faculty in that have real start up experience as well as
the experience and the credentials to teach at the graduate level.
So we're looking to bring you a blend of individuals that are not purely academics,
that are not purely researchers that have never done a start up.
We're looking to do both and add people that have that startup experience as well
and to have a rich and robust team of faculties and advisors for you.
We also have a great online platform for learning.
We actually have had a minor in technology entrepreneurship available online for
our students at the College Park for the last five years.
We also teach widely with Coursera and the MOOC movement and
are bringing some of those best practices into our classrooms as well.
So with that we've got both the knowledge and the know how and
the tools and the resources to deliver a great online experience.
Support and
resources is something that is further going to differentiate our program.
And that's where we begin to bring in some element of online incubation.
So in addition to the faculty we're going to have a team of entrepreneurs and
residents and experts that are going to be available to assist students in a just
in time format such that if you have a marketing or finance issue in your first
or second term in the program, you don't have to wait months to get an answer.
We have the expectation, and we believe the obligation, to help students and
develop their new venture ideas as they need them to happen.
And not purely based on our calendar, so that we can do some real time and
just in time coaching and mentoring on start-up concepts.
By way of introduction we've included some brief bios here
of the faculty within the first two courses.
So as I introduced myself in the beginning, I'm James Green and
what I do within our program is both lead the program
as well as teach our first course on Opportunity Analysis and Decision Making.
We also have Dr. Thomas Mierzwa that teaches our second course in Strategies
for Managing Innovation and with that he brings a wealth of experience.
And, not only is a practicing entrepreneur, but also as a advanced
degree instructor, working with both graduate as well as doctorate students.
And doing that in an online format for a number of years.
So in both of our cases, we practice what we preach.
We've taught it for a significant number of years.
In Thomas' case, over 20 years, and my case, over 10,
and we also have a lot of experience in teaching online.
And with that,
we will be offering our courses as a pair in the fall term over the 12 weeks.
And the key focuses are you and the idea itself.
From there, we'll move in to term two where we're looking at
business model generation and innovative thinking.
And beginning to think about specific products and servicing customers.
In our third term, we're looking at creative design,
prototyping and development.
We'll also take a look at market development and
commercialization in that third term.
Our fourth term we turn our attention to legal and finance.
And lastly, we'll finish with leadership and some growth elements.
So over the coming 15 months we have five terms of approximately 12 weeks each.
With a one week or so gap between,
where you're taking two courses at three credits per course during this time.
And these are courses built by entrepreneurs for entrepreneurs.
Our learning management system is a tool that will co-locate
all of our video lectures, our readings, our assignments, our guest speakers,
discussion forums, gradebook, submission of assignment, feedback of assignment,
collaboration with classmates and a variety of other resources.
So with that, it gives you a single platform whereby you can go in and
to really manage all the business associated with the course.
Our video lectures are predominantly green screen studio based HD quality videos.
You also may at times see other elements that we integrate.
These may be interviews.
These may be field studies and other things that we're doing to liven up
the classroom and to add some other unique elements there as well.
The online element that is synchronous,
where we would meet at a set time, is ultimately up to you.
So with the nature of the classroom and the dynamic global nature of
the classroom, there are no set assigned online activities or set meeting times.
What you see here is a snapshot of one model, that may be one to many, or
we may do some small group discussions from time to time,
and it's at the student's' option if they would like to participate in that or not.
We'll also be conducting periodic office hours that are one to one online,
again at your discretion.
So, the element of the online synchronous piece of the learning is ultimately up to
the students and what adds value and what fits the schedules that you
have Another
big piece of the learning model that we're offering is that of relationship building.
So as faculty, we're interested in connecting you with prospective customers
and partners, technologists and experts, lenders and
investors that we may have within our network.
So this is just a brief snapshot of my LinkedIn profile.
I'm presently at about 2,300 connections that are broad based.
By industry, by geography, by expertise.
And one of the key elements that we hope to bring to bear as faculty is to
help bridge some of these connections with our students and
help facilitate the launch of your ventures.
The students themselves are perhaps the greatest resource you're gonna have within
our experience.
With that, we will have dozens of students in our class.
And in this first fall class, I believe we're gonna have over 40 students.
This gives you an opportunity to see and learn from students globally,
that are in different phases in their career,
that have different expertise, that have similar and perhaps even common interests.
But we're all unified and connected in this core mission of
learning about technology venturing and technology entrepreneurship.
And so we have a LinkedIn group that we've established and invite you to join,
we'll be sharing some more details about that later as well.
From a financial standpoint, we've worked to charge the minimum
that the University of Maryland allows for graduate studies.
So, presently, for the coming year, and our expectation for
next year, total tuition and fees is about 19,5.
With that, there are a variety of financing options available.
The tuition is paid on each 12 week term, so it's due over 5 installments.
There's also the opportunity to pay that monthly via a no interest model as well.
There may also be loan and other federal programs that this would qualify for.
So if you have questions on that, you can connect with us, and
we can facilitate some of that information sharing as well.
As a graduate student, you also have full access to many benefits including
software suites, our library, alumni programs.
So we'll be sharing some more information about that with you as well
over our fall term.
So in summary, we've given you a little bit of a snapshot of our program, our
faculty, our courses, our student profiles as well as some financial options.
So the online application is available and live, we invite you to that.
If you've been accepted, we invite you to enroll in our class for August.
And also, all of our students are certainly invited for
graduation when the time comes, so approximately 15 months from start, and
we invite you and encourage you to apply.
Thank you.
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