Entrepreneurship & Innovation Minor

The Entrepreneurship & Innovation (E&I) Minor educates students to serve as leaders in the innovation economy with the knowledge, skills, and confidence to develop, scale and deliver breakthrough solutions to real-world problems. They will be prepared to do so within a range of organizational contexts: an entrepreneurial startup of their own, as key members of a founding team, or as an entrepreneurial member of a large organization.

Jointly offered by the School of Engineering and Sloan School of Management, the minor is designed as an interdisciplinary program with a coherent combination of conceptual and practical elements that draws on a wealth of prior educational activities in this domain.

Students who complete the E&I Minor will have developed knowledge and skills in:

The innovation process from the conception of an initial invention and the problem it may solve, to the refinement of the solution, to the considerations needed in the scale-up and delivery of the solution, to the launch of an appropriately funded entity.
The personal skills of communication, teamwork, decision-making and leadership, and the integrity and character, that are necessary to engage with stakeholders and develop the invention into a real-world product or process.
Strategies and methods to engage in rigorous iterations to identify and deeply understand societal needs/problems and develop robust scalable solutions.
Types of organizational models and designs for the delivery of innovations to the world.
A range of global contexts for entrepreneurship and innovation, including variations in the interface with key stakeholders whose interests have the potential to enable or limit the potential effectiveness of innovation and entrepreneurship.

For more information please email eiminor_admin@mit.edu.

“You should look into the Entrepreneurship and Innovation minor! The classes are designed to give you the different perspectives of different core parts of a startup. One of my favorite classes at MIT was 6.901/15.359: Engineering Innovation (which is also a part of the minor). It basically teaches you the things you should know to be the CTO of a startup and I would highly recommend it to anyone interested in learning how to make ideas tangible and functional on a scale. Overall great class would highly recommend.”

Mona Abdelrahman
Course 6-9 (Computation and Cognition) ‘21

Requirements for the minor are structured around five courses. Students will complete a core curriculum consisting of two E&I Foundations subjects. In addition, students will complete an elective subject in each of the three domains — E&I in Context, Leadership of Teams & Organizations, and E&I Experiential.

E&I Foundations (required)

These subjects will introduce students to foundational knowledge and skills for systematic entrepreneurial & innovative action. The knowledge developed in the two core courses will enable the further skills development and practice experiences to follow.

15.359J/6.901J Engineering Innovation: Moving Ideas to Impact
15.373J/2.912J/3.085J Venture Engineering

E&I in Context (select at least one)

This requirement will develop a student’s ability to understand the role of entrepreneurship and innovation within various contexts, including its role in promoting economic growth and prosperity, interactions with policy, as well as consideration of impacts on environmental resources.

3.086 Innovation and Commercialization of Materials Technology
6.805[J] Foundations of Information Policy
11.005 Introduction to International Development
11.123 Big Plans and Mega-Urban Landscapes
11.142 Geography of the Global Economy
11.165 Energy and Infrastructure Technologies
14.46 Innovation Policy and the Economy
15.031[J] Energy Decisions, Markets, and Policies*
15.3641 Regional Entrepreneurship Acceleration Lab (REAL)
17.307 American Public Policy for Washington Interns
17.309[J] Science, Technology, and Public Policy
17.315 Health Policy
17.33 Building a Better World
STS.002 Finance and Society
STS.004 Intersections: Science, Technology, and the World
STS.011 Engineering Life: Biotechnology and Society
STS.032 Energy, Environment, and Society
STS.081[J] Innovation Systems for Science, Technology, Energy, Manufacturing, and Health
STS.088 Africa for Engineers
EC.701[J] D-Lab: Development

Leadership of Teams and Organizations (select at least one)

This requirement will develop capabilities to lead effectively in entrepreneurial situations. This entails forming and leading teams (in both large and small organizations) to move ideas to impact under conditions of uncertainty, which includes understanding how to balance multiple perspectives and seek out the expertise of others.

2.96 Management in Engineering
6.915 Leading Creative and Innovative Teams
10.02 Foundations of Entrepreneurship for Engineers
15.3941 Dilemmas in Founding New Ventures
15.668 People and Organizations
GEL 1 12 units completed as part of the GEL 1 Certificate (6.902, 6.911, 6.912) may be counted towards this requirement

E&I Experiential (select at least one)

This requirement will enable students to complete a hands-on project in which they apply the skills they have developed across all three learning goal categories. With foundational knowledge in E&I, understanding of the broader context, and leadership skills to form and drive teams, students will be prepared to maximize the impact of their projects: both economically as well as socially in the value delivered to end users and society.

2.009 The Product Engineering Process*
2.750[J] Medical Device Design*
2.752 Development of Mechanical Products
2.760 Global Engineering*
3.042 Materials Project Laboratory*
4.031 Design Studio: Objects and Interaction
6.170 Software Studio*
6.811[J] Principles and Practice of Assistive Technology
6.813 User Interface Design and Implementation*
11.127[J] Design and Development of Games for Learning
15.3781 Building an Entrepreneurial Venture: Advanced Tools and Techniques*
15.3901 New Enterprises
15.3991 Entrepreneurship Lab
21W.789 Communicating with Mobile Technology*
CMS.339 Virtual Reality and Immersive Media Production
CMS.610 Media Industries and Systems: The Art, Science and Business of Games*
CMS.611[J] Creating Video Games*
EC.720[J] D-Lab: Design*
EC.7## One 9- or 12-unit D-Lab subject meeting the criteria for this category may be counted towards the E&I Experiential requirement (selection must be approved by Minor Advisor).

* Subject has prerequisites that are outside of the program and may limit enrollment to majors in the relevant Course.

Minor Advisors

NAME: Reza Rahaman
DEPARTMENT: Gordon Engineering Leadership Program
TITLE: B. Gordon Industry Co-Director and Senior Lecturer
PHONE: 617-324-7850
OFFICE: 35-433L
EMAIL: rezar@mit.edu

The Entrepreneurship & Innovation Minor is available to all MIT undergraduates.

MIT-wide Minor Regulations

Students may not overlap more than two of the five minor subjects with any other major or minor.
Students may not minor and major in the same field, thus students majoring in Management in the Entrepreneurship track are not eligible for this minor.
The subjects taken for this minor must be taken for letter grades (or must have been taken the first semester of Freshman year).
Minors are awarded when the S.B. degree is awarded, and must be associated with a specific degree. Students enrolled simultaneously in an undergraduate and graduate program must complete their minor(s) with the undergraduate degree.

Minor Application Form

Students may download the E&I Minor Application Form and either print it or fill it out electronically. This form must be approved and signed by one of the minor advisors and then sent to the Program Manager, Brandon Hoye in E38-354.
Students should structure classes around a coherent theme and will need to meet with a minor advisor to assess goals and select the best classes for those objectives. We advise students to submit minor application forms by the end of their junior year.

Revisions and Dropping

All changes must be approved by a minor advisor.
If a student decides not to complete the minor, they need to send an email to Brandon Hoye, bhoye@mit.edu, with his/her/their full name, MIT ID number, and class year.

Minor Completion Form

Once all minor subjects are completed (or once a student is in their final semester at MIT), they should fill out an E&I Minor Completion Form. This form must be approved and signed by one of the minor advisors and then sent to the Program Manager, Brandon Hoye bhoye@mit.edu in E38-354.
Students should bring the following items when meeting with a minor advisor to sign a completion form:
- A copy of the signed minor application form (with any changes marked and, ideally, already approved)
- An unofficial transcript (or a grade report pulled up on a laptop). Printed copies of unofficial transcripts are available free of charge from the Student Services Center, 11-120.
- E&I Minor Completion Form
- A copy of the current registration (only for seniors in their final terms). Once a passing grade has been reported for a last term subject, the Registrar’s Office will record the minor as complete.
If a student is graduating and currently taking one or more minor subjects in their final semester before graduation, they may list the subjects on the completion form and the form will be audited once grades are submitted at the end of the semester. Please note: the student must list any last term subjects under the exact subject number that appears on their registration. For jointly listed classes, this is crucial, as the system will audit only the listed subject number.
Students must file a minor completion form by the end of the third week of their final term at MIT, even if they are taking some of their minor subjects during that term. Students may file the completion form at any point after they have completed the subjects in the minor—there is no need to wait until their final semester—but they must do so by the deadline above in order to avoid a $50 late fee.