1. Farley Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation
Frameworks for Interdisciplinary and
Experiential Entrepreneurship Courses
NCIIA Open
Michael Marasco & Todd Warren
March 22, 2013

2. Farley Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation
Farley Center Goals
• Deliver interdisciplinary and experiential
education that exposes students to the entire
product and business development process
within an entrepreneurship and innovation
context
• Provide outside of classroom
services/experiences that leverage our in
classroom efforts to empower students, faculty
and alumni to be successful entrepreneurs and
innovators

3. Farley Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation
Accolades
• Inc. Magazine named • NUvention Web student
NUvention one of top Nikhil Sethi named one
10 entrepreneurship of 9 Forbes College All-
classes Star Entrepreneurs

4. Farley Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation
Almost $2 million won in 2012
• Numat wins over $1.5 • Wins $100K at
million in: TechWeek Launch this
• Clean Energy Trust past Monday
• Rice-Mimas $100K
• DOE

5. Farley Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation
Accolades
Northwestern is
the most
entrepreneurial
college in the
Midwest
Forbes

6. Farley Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation
Accolades
NUvention
one of 4
classes
highlighted in
VentureBeat

7. Farley Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation
Companies Created

8. Farley Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation
Are we going back to the beginning?
Do it
Incubators Cases/Majors
Field
Hybrids/ NUvention
Studies/Internships

9. Farley Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation
Entrepreneurship Ed is Evolving From:

10. Farley Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation
To?

11. Farley Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation
Where Are We Learning From?

12. Farley Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation
Where Are We Learning From?

13. Farley Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation
What is NUvention?
• Interdisciplinary/Experiential
• What students are asking for
• Alums with deep experience chair classes
• Evolution of case based learning
• Best simulation of creating a product/service and business
• More rigorous than an incubator
• Start-ups are not a goal but nice follow-on validation
• Expanding to Digital Media and Nano

14. Farley Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation
High Level Framework
Alumni Faculty
Students Industry
NUvention

15. Farley Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation
History
• Student idea in 2006
• Dean level support
• Key faculty support
• Key Alum
• Needed Organizer
• NUvention Medical launched September
2007
• 6 Classes today

16. Farley Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation
Guiding Principles
• Alum Chair
• Alum Advisory Board-1 or 2 face-to face
meetings/Mentors
• Faculty Lead
• Consistent branding and infrastructure
• Start-Up Weekends/Pre-Class assignments
• Team Building
• Uniform Governance

17. Farley Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation
Challenges
• Governance
• Faculty Appointments/Comp
• Funding
• Faculty Leadership/Faculty Team Size
• Unified Marketing Message
• Tech Transfer
• Mentorship/Coaching
• School Politics
• Overhead/Cost

18. Farley Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation
Logistics/Infrastructure
• Governance Centralized vs Decentralized
• Medical Case Study
• Tech Support
• Class Web Sites
• Online tools for status, project mgt, business model canvas
• Adopted LaunchPad Central this year
• Dedicated Staff Support
• Cross Listing/Degree Applicability
• Department Level Liaisons

19. Farley Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation
Lessons Learned
• Alum Role Key- Attend Todd’s Session Sat @10
• Chair
• Advisory board
• Class by Committee Does Not Work
• Faculty Lead
• Creating Student Teams is Challenging
• Different Goals-Committed to start-up, learning, not sure
• Student created teams do not work as well faculty formed.
• Interdisciplinary Works
• Hard to Tell Students Apart

20. Farley Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation
Contact Info:
Michael A. Marasco, Director
mmarasco@northwestern.edu
@mmarasco
847.467.6347
Todd Warren
todd@toddwinc.com
Farley Center for Entrepreneurship & Innovation
McCormick School of Engineering
Northwestern University
2133 Sheridan Road, 2.331
Evanston, IL 60208