Biomedical Entrepreneurship Initiative - a Novel Online Education Program towards a conference competition (IEEE CAS)

Abstract It is recognized that teaching and embracing entrepreneurial skillsets lead to more valuable and impactful innovations in biomedical engineering. Unfortunately only very few institutions globally have started to integrate innovation generation methods and entrepreneurial mindset development in their curricula. A novel approach was developed and tested for the IEEE CASS society. A 6 week online training program was developed (30 videos, worksheets, deliverables, and regular tests) and subsequently advertised leading the participants, accompanied by weekly personal guidance, to create a real innovation project. This was embedded in a competition to allow the best teams to receive funding to be able to attend the annual society conference and participate in a competition. The learners all reported a changed mindset towards innovation generation and the presented results were stimulating and exciting. The paper provides details on the free training program and shows some of the results. This could - and maybe should - become a standard training and program event point at future biomedical engineering conferences.