Board 339: NSF S-STEM: Educating Engineering Undergraduates to be Intrapreneurs

Abstract The Tech Intrapreneurs Program (TIP) program focuses on developing intrapreneurship skills and competencies in undergraduate Engineering students. Intrapreneurship is the practice of developing a new venture, product, or service within an existing organization. Engineering-focused companies require a diverse workforce that is capable of innovation and many students will not join these types of firms in as their first employer post-college. Intrapreneurial skills have been shown to facilitate career progression and improve managerial skills and opportunities, even in established companies. In order to address the need for more STEM workers to have intrapreneurial skills, TIP recruited and enrolled academically talented and diverse electrical and computer engineering undergraduate students. TIP provides a multi-faceted approach to improve entrepreneurship skills. Specifically, the program combines faculty and industry mentorship, workforce development seminars, an international experience, an industrial internship, entrepreneurship programs, and scholarships (provided by NSF and an industry partner) to produce graduates with intrapreneurship competencies. A total of 68 scholars in four cohorts were admitted to TIP. Scholars, hiring managers, and mentors were surveyed on topics to reveal the efficacy of the program. Both qualitative and quantitative data were collected. This paper presents data on the growth in intrapreneurship competencies for each of the cohorts of students, data on mentoring practices that were integral to the TIP experience, as well as student and mentor perception data on the benefits of the program.