Engineering Innovation Program
At the heart of ECoE is Engineering Innovation Program that will instill the innovation mindset into undergraduate engineering education. As part of the Dean’s vision for the 2022 – 2027 Strategic Plan for the College of Engineering (COE), the College will implement the inclusion of a system for innovation, leadership, and management principles, integrated into the undergraduate program.
The Engineering Innovation Program will empower our engineering educators to meet the needs of students before they enter the workplace, increasing productivity and innovation, and reducing time spent closing the skills gap. Innovation Engineering is a multi-disciplinary field blending the humanities, engineering, business, and patent law. This program will provide a new instructional model and access to the cloud-based innovation hub for students. The virtual hub is a dedicated digital space with access to tools that enable the faculty and students to learn new skills and earn credentials as well as develop and nurture new ideas. Tools include sales forecasting calculators, patent writing templates, market research surveys, and project development roadmaps. This system will catapult students to think and act smarter, faster, and more innovatively.
Based on Innovation Engineering™ developed by Chemical Engineer, Doug Hall, this program is a new field of academic study and industrial practice based on a body of knowledge comprised of 48 skills. The College will adopt the Innovation Engineering™ program to implement new instructional models that will expand our educational model in and beyond the classroom to meet the needs of today and tomorrow. It is a multi-disciplinary field blending the humanities, engineering, business, and patent law. A cloud-based innovation hub for students, it is a dedicated digital space with access to tools that enable the faculty and students to learn new skills and earn credentials as well as develop and nurture new ideas. Tools include sales forecasting calculators, patent writing templates, market research surveys, and project development roadmaps. This system will catapult students to think and act smarter, faster, and more innovatively.
Innovation Engineering™ transforms innovation into a real science. It is grounded in the world’s largest database of quantitative data on innovation – over 26,000 innovations, deep data on 15,000 teams, over $14 billion in innovations as they go from raw idea to reality. Thought leading companies that have contributed data and insights to Innovation Engineering™ include Procter & Gamble, Walmart, Toyota Manufacturing, Nestle, Walt Disney, Nike, American Express, Ford Motor Company, and thousands of others. (Doug Hall, 2020) The body of knowledge and its corresponding curriculum brings academic discipline and rigor to the innovation process. This is accomplished by educating and enabling innovation change agents, in our case, our faculty - the leaders of the future workforce, and students in our undergraduate programs - the future workforce, in the Innovation Engineering™ system.