Fostering an Entrepreneurial Mindset in CS Education

This tutorial will introduce the Entrepreneurial Mindset (EM), an approach from engineering education that aims to foster students' motivation and ability to identify innovative opportunities, address complex, societal problems, and create value in diverse ways. EM specifically centers around the ''3Cs'': Curiosity, Connections, and Creating Value, which are concepts that can benefit students not only in entrepreneurship, but also in their CS work generally. In the tutorial, we will define and operationalize each of these concepts, and facilitate discussions on how participants likely already cover some of these concepts in their courses. We will also discuss facets of CS that especially benefit from EM, as well as how the dispositions, competencies, and behaviors that comprise EM serve as helpful complements to the knowledge, skills, and dispositions described in the CS2023 guidelines. These activities will help participants build a basic understanding of EM-related concepts and its connections to CS. We will then ask participants to design an intervention to foster EM in one of their existing courses, including an activity and an assessment plan, and present this draft to others in the workshop for peer feedback. This activity will help participants apply their understanding to their own teaching, and create a potential plan for integrating EM into their classroom. The tutorial will also introduce the Kern Entrepreneurial Engineering Network (KEEN), which developed EM, and describe further resources to learn about and engage with KEEN.