New Master of Entrepreneurship Program | University of Michigan

The University of Michigan, a leader across many disciplines (and my alma mater) has announced the creation of a Master of Entrepreneurship. Its great to see it is a joint venture between business and engineering. I was fortunate to interview Michigan Alum and supporter Sam Zell a few months back and it was evident in our short talk that Michigan, its leaders, and supporters were fully aware of the interdisciplinary nature of entrepreneurship. This is a great development for Michigan and the practice, research, and teaching of entrepreneurship in higher education. From the Michigan Master of Entrepreneurship website:

The Michigan Master of Entrepreneurship (MsE) gives students the ability to create new technology-focused ventures, either as standalone entities or within established innovative organizations.

This instruction is not available through conventional business or engineering curricula. Most business schools focus on the skill set required in larger, more mature organizations. Most engineering programs do not include market assessment and commercialization skills. The MsE program brings these two cultures together in a novel synthesis that is greater than the sum of its parts.

The first students will begin in August 2012 and the application is available online. Go Blue! (I can write that, this is a blog!)

via Master of Entrepreneurship | University of Michigan.

Tough Mudder on Bloomberg Enterprise | HBS Student Entrepreneur

Electric Shocks @toughmudder

About 8 months ago I began training for the Marine Corps Marathon and while surfing fitness websites came across a Mustache Man Tough Mudder Training Video (watch below). I was intrigued by Tough Mudder, a special forces inspired adventure race and learned that it had been created by an HBS student (whose HBS professors questioned the viability of the adventure marketplace – NYT). No matter, entrepreneur Will Dean launched with an iteration of his Tough Mudder race and found customers quickly.

Bloomberg’s Matt Miller (@mattmiller1973) has completed the race and a Bloomberg’s Enterprise episode on Tough Mudder which airs Nov 17, 2011 at 9:00 pm EST.

Bloomberg’s Matt Miller checks out one of the 12-mile obstacle courses of fast-growing adventure sports company Tough Mudder and interviews co-founder Will Dean about how he turned a Harvard Business School project into a national brand with over $20 million in revenue and global expansion on the horizon.

The video gets great at 1:30 ish.

I am hoping to do a Tough Mudder event in 2012. Looks like a fun day. Anyone out there complete a race?

via Bloomberg Enterprise: Successful Mid-sized Companies – Bloomberg.

MIT Student Entrepreneur Makes Climate Controlled Jacket

Cool article about an interesting innovation that an Indian student at MIT, Kranthi Vistakula dreamed up and executed on it. Love it. From the Economist Magazine:

His first approach was to build a jacket with built-in heating and cooling systems. Packed with motorised fans, heating pipes and electric wiring, the resulting apparel was bulky and weighed 7 kilograms. “When I wore it to college, my friends joked that I was going to blow up the place,” says Mr Vistakula. So he went back to the drawing board, and turned instead to a thermoelectric device called a Peltier plate, which operates like its better-known cousin, the thermocouple, but in reverse.

I shared that snippet because last year, a group of undergrad business students in my New Venture Creation class used a peltier system in their business plan for a efficient, constantly cooled & hygenic automatic salad dressing dispenser — no more crusty plastic bottles in melted ice at salad bars.

Vintakula of MIT has built a bunch of products and now has customers for his wares — both private and government. The company is Dhama Innovations — check out their stuff. Its pretty cool.

via Climate-controlled clothing: Don’t forget to recharge your jacket | The Economist.