An Implementation of Continuous Improvement in Instilling Innovative Thinking in The Entrepreneurship Curriculum for Engineers.

Entrepreneurship is increasingly being recognized as an important part of engineering education. However, it is also seen that establishing of a traditional business plan that was taught to engineers, is not considered as "the cutting edge" of doing entrepreneurship. Despite the business plan being a core element of most engineering entrepreneurship curricula, there are new concepts in entrepreneurship such as "The Lean Startup" which are being increasingly talked about. Along these lines, the faculty in The College of Engineering and Computer Science at California State University, Northridge are working with industry leaders and professionals to continuously improve the entrepreneurship curriculum being taught to the engineers of today & tomorrow. One of the challenges that engineers have is to think outside the box and be innovative. As part of this effort to instill innovation and creative thinking in engineers as well as update the entrepreneurship curriculum, the authors have implemented various topics on innovative thinking into the curriculum. These topics include Lateral Thinking as well as 6 Thinking Hats Applications. These topics were included in the Fall 2013 entrepreneurship syllabus and have received positive feedback from the students. In this paper, the authors will talk about what aspects were included in the curriculum and how they can provide value by being included in the curriculum. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]