Most entrepreneurs possess deep knowledge of their industries. So why shouldn’t entrepreneurship classes be just as specialized? That’s the logic behind NUvention, a group of classes that focuses on three verticals: medical devices, energy, and Internet businesses.
NUvention, a series of interdisciplinary classes spearheaded by Michael Marasco at the Farley Center, has been featured as one of the best courses of 2011 in America by Inc. magazine.
“We take advantage of the fact that we’re interdisciplinary,” says Michael Marasco, director of Northwestern’s Farley Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation. “The business students talk about business plans and marketing; the medical students talk about the clinical area; the law students talk about bylaws and articles of incorporation.”
The first course, NUvention: Medical Innovation, was offered in 2008 and brought together 82 graduate students from four schools (McCormick, Kellogg, Feinberg and the School of Law) to develop medical technology and create businesses around that technology. The class observed doctors and surgeons, got mentoring from industry leaders and eventually went on to file 11 provisional patents. Since then we have launched two variations of that course: NUvention: Web where students create and launch a web business and is also the only course to have both undergraduate and graduate students from every school in the University and; NUvention: Energy where energy research from Northwestern and Argonne National Laboratory are developed into viable businesses.
The NUvention series of classes had over 150 students in 2011.
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