All Answers: Re: [pakgrid] Entrepreneurship for Engineers

Wednesday 17 April 2013

Re: [pakgrid] Entrepreneurship for Engineers

A course on Entrepreneurship is included in most Computer Science, Information Technology & Software Engneering programs that I have reviewed. Some engineering programs also have this course.

HEC has also asked universities to include this course in the bachelors program so that students are motivated and trained to setup their own businesses. Having said that, a lot depends on how this course is taught.

Regards,

Amir Hayat

On Wed, Apr 17, 2013 at 12:25 PM, ali mansoor <ali_mansoor_kh@yahoo.com> wrote:

Aslaam ale Kum,

I have been educated to become an engineer, however as I got into teaching because of my interest I stumbled upon an intriguing question. Why do students choose certain careers over others, in a quest to answer this question I decided to change my field from engineering to management ( in fact its not purely management it is entrepreneurship).

I found this area to be very engaging as the fundamental aim is to allow us to work on ideas that attract us personally and to try and figure out how we can make those ideas into reality.

Its not a walk in the park to realize an idea. It is gruesome and full of risk, but I am very passionate about teaching this to the future students of Pakistan. And hopefully if they learn something from me and apply it, we could reap the benefits as a country, in terms of job creation and solutions to our local problems.

One research topic that I find very engaging is how we can train engineers to become entrepreneurs. It is indeed the case that many our graduates are doing it on their own, without anyone teaching them. However, quality formal education in any area makes us learn from other people experience and our learning curve is reduced significantly. So if our engineering graduates were taught this stuff during studies, the chances of them getting into the startup world will become faster and safer, hopefully :) .

So what will it take for deans of engineering schools to allow entrepreneurship to be taught to their students. I think with the job market suffering this avenue is worth trying.

Regards,
Ali Khawaja
Lecturer, Faculty of Engineering
University of Central Punjab