Daniel BuenoIn 2014, a course on entrepreneurship and innovation, which currently targets students in their final year of undergraduate study at the Politecnic School of the University of São Paulo (Poli/USP) will also be offered to first-year students. The initiative is part of the reorganization of the engineering course curriculum designed to expose students from early on in their course of studies in related subjects to business innovation implementation and coordination.
“The concept of entrepreneurship is connected to the work of engineers because they have to take on a project leadership role,” says José Antônio Lerosa de Siqueira, professor of entrepreneurship at Poli and collaborator with the USP Innovation Agency. “Therefore it’s important for young people to be exposed from the beginning of their undergraduate career to activities that involve planning and risk,” he says.
He is convinced that entrepreneurship should be promoted among young people as early as possible. Also in his role as an instructor at Senai in São Paulo, Lerosa recalls that his interest in the subject started when he began studying civil engineering. “I graduated in 1973 and got a good job starting out. But in 1978, the profession in Brazil ran into trouble and I decided to leave.” Dissatisfied with his professor’s salary at Poli, since 1977, and with no job opportunities in the market, Lerosa saw that the only thing he could do would be to start a civil engineering project company. “I had to become an entrepreneur,” he says.
Personal collectionLerosa: the earlier the betterPersonal collection
By reconciling the roles as business owner, consultant and professor, Lerosa says that many of the concepts he learned while in college could only really be tested when he decided to follow the path of entrepreneurship. “The earlier we come in contact with our entrepreneurial potential, the more we are able to make it a reality. The university has nothing to lose from this. In fact, it has everything to gain,” he says.
The attention to entrepreneurial training at Poli began at the graduate level in 2012. After a request from the Federation of Industries of the State of São Paulo (Fiesp) and from USP, the USP Innovation Agency established one course in entrepreneurship and innovation and another in management and administration, designed for students in various fields. The courses are partly online and partly on-site, and classes have already formed.
During this semester, the USP Innovation Agency began selecting 12 undergraduate students who will travel to Bayreuth, Germany to take part in a business planning and technology competition. From January 5 – 15, teams made up of students from USP and from the universities of Illinois, Bayreuth and Hong Kong – which has a program in which students learn technology and management at the same time – will be challenged to design innovative electric vehicle projects and develop business plans for them.
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