A few years back I was talking to the Electrical and Computer Engineering department head at University of Toronto about pretty much the same topic. He's very much an entrepreneur - started & sold his own business, knows lots of people in the industry, etc.
It's not so much something to "teach" as a culture that needs to be encouraged. Sure, you can offer some business, accounting, economics (entrepreneurship?) courses to engineers, and to some extent U of T does that. But the important thing is, after you graduate chances are you'll do something similar to your friends. All your colleagues are only talking about grad school or working on their resumes and applying for jobs? Chances are that's what you'll do. Been throwing around business ideas with your friends since day 1? You might actually decide to start something.
Don't know if there's an easy solution... good courses and guest speakers help... entrepreneurship/business clubs might help... but if the culture doesn't exist, how do you kickstart it?
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A few years back I was talking to the Electrical and Computer Engineering department head at University of Toronto about pretty much the same topic. He's very much an entrepreneur - started & sold his own business, knows lots of people in the industry, etc.
It's not so much something to "teach" as a culture that needs to be encouraged. Sure, you can offer some business, accounting, economics (entrepreneurship?) courses to engineers, and to some extent U of T does that. But the important thing is, after you graduate chances are you'll do something similar to your friends. All your colleagues are only talking about grad school or working on their resumes and applying for jobs? Chances are that's what you'll do. Been throwing around business ideas with your friends since day 1? You might actually decide to start something.
Don't know if there's an easy solution... good courses and guest speakers help... entrepreneurship/business clubs might help... but if the culture doesn't exist, how do you kickstart it?