Technology Commercialization Minor

This minor is intended for all undergraduate students within the College of Engineering. The purpose of this minor is to inspire, mentor, and foster future business leaders and innovators who have the potential to shape the future of technology and technological innovation on a global scale. The curriculum consists of material covering economic and business principles as they relate to prototyping, product creation, and commercialization of products. The minor is intended to expose engineering and computer science majors to elements of technology commercialization, with the relevant aspects of both entrepreneurship and commercialization of innovative products and ideas within established enterprises. This program is designed to prepare the student to have a basic education and understanding in what is required to start a business based on an innovative concept or technology they have developed. A significant component of this minor is its coupling with the senior design experience and participation in a business plan competition within final year curriculum.

Please see the UNLV College of Engineering web page at www.unlv.edu/engineering for information about department programs, faculty and facilities.  Degree worksheets are available at www.unlv.edu/degree/minor-technology-commercialization

Learning Outcomes

• Improve, encourage, and foster an individual’s ability to communicate ideas and designs, as they pertain to entrepreneurship and product creation, with a variety of audiences.
• Develop and give students an understanding of the economic background at both a business level and on a global scale, and how these principles and concepts affect and shape the design/build and implementation process.
• Expose students to the business side of product development as a way of marrying technical and business skills in future post-graduation endeavors.
• Engage the student in the design/build process and foster an understanding of the development a product goes through from concept to production and distribution.

Career Possibilities

• Coupled with an engineering or computer science degree, this minor is meant to give a student the ability to begin a “start-up” company.
• Coupled with an engineering or computer science degree, this minor will help those interested in pursuing a degree as a patent attorney.
• Coupled with an engineering or computer science degree, this minor is meant to expand opportunities not only as an engineer or computer scientist/programmer, but also provide expanded job opportunities as a project manager within the major field of study.