Hi and welcome to our online Information Session for

the University of Maryland's Master of Technology Entrepreneurship.

I'm James Green.

I'm the Director of the program.

I also teach within the program, and

we have a lineup to share with you a little bit of the background,

the details, and some of the next steps to engage in the Masters program.

To start with, why a Master of Technology Entrepreneurship?

We think it's certainly a timely time for a degree, and

a timely time for an online degree of this topic.

One, it's certainly a revolutionary era in education and venture creation.

But within education at the University of Maryland,

we've been teaching entrepreneurship for about 15 years out of my department.

But we also have been engaged in venture creation and incubation of startup

companies and technology startup companies for about 25 years.

But what we're seeing now through technology and other resources, and

just the general cost of doing business dropping,

that new opportunities are emerging.

That we can do new things in new ways, and that we can effectively

connect with students worldwide leveraging a technology platform.

We can also see that with this Masters, you can increase your knowledge and

your global relationships.

A key reason that we're offering the course and

the programs exclusively online are those global relationships.

We believe that there's great value in being in a classroom here in College Park,

Maryland, with other individuals from different backgrounds and nationalities.

But we argue there may be even greater value of doing that online,

where you're in a classroom and you have students that are from the US, and Africa,

and Europe, and Asia all in the classroom at the same time and

simultaneously living and working in regions around the world.

We think it's a great platform for being able to connect with prospective advisors,

partners as well as potential cofounders.

We also see the degree as offering great career marketability and mobility.

Our expectation is that many of our students will launch new companies

as a result of the experience in the program, or

may already be working in technology startup ventures.

And are working to improve and enhance their success via the program.

Others may further their knowledge and their experience by going into a corporate

setting, or a government setting, a non profit arena, etc.

And so we see the skills that we're building here are equally relevant in

those arenas.

And it's a further point of differentiation versus some of the other

Masters programs that are out there.

When we look at what we have to offer, I think our number one resource is our

faculty, and we're bringing faculty in that have real startup experience as well

as the experience and the credentials to teach at the graduate level.

So we're looking to bring you a blend of individuals that are not purely academics,

that are not purely researchers, that have never done a startup.

We're looking to do both and add people that have that startup experience as well,

and to have a rich and robust team of faculty and advisors for you.

We also have a great online platform for learning.

We actually have had a Minor in Technology Entrepreneurship available online for

our students at the College Park for the last five years.

We also teach widely with Coursera and the MOOC Movement and

are bringing some of those best practices into our classrooms as well.

So with that, we've got both the knowledge, and the know how, and

the tools, and the resources to deliver a great online experience.

Support and resources is something that is further gonna differentiate our program.

And that's where we begin to bring in some element of online incubation.

So in addition to the faculty, we're gonna have a team of entrepreneurs and

residents and experts.

They're gonna be available to assist students in a just in time format,

such that if you have a marketing or finance issue in your first or

second term in the program, you don't have to wait months to get an answer.

We have the expectation, and we believe the obligation, to help students and

develop their new venture ideas as they need them to happen and

not purely based on our calendar, so that we can do some real time and

just in time coaching and mentoring on startup concepts.

By way of introduction,

we've included some brief bios here of the faculty within the first two courses.

So as I introduced myself from the beginning, I'm James Green.

And what I do within our program is both lead the program

as well as teach our first course on Opportunity Analysis and Decision Making.

We also have Dr. Thomas Mierzwa that teaches our second

course in Strategies for Managing Innovation.

And with that he brings a wealth of experience.

And not only as a practicing entrepreneur, but also as an advanced degree

instructor working with both graduate as well as doctorate students, and

doing that in an online format for a number of years.

So in both of our cases, we have practiced what we preached, or we've taught it for

a significant number of years.

In Tom's case it's over 20 years, in my case over ten.

And we also have a lot of experience in teaching online.

And with that,

we will be offering our courses as a pair in the fall term over the 12 weeks.

And the key focuses are you and the idea itself.

From there we'll move into term two where we're looking at

business model generation, at innovative thinking, and

beginning to think about specific products and servicing customers.

In our third term, we're looking at creative design,

prototyping and development.

We'll also take a look at market development and

commercialization in that third term.

Our fourth term, we turn our attention to legal and finance.

And lastly, we'll finish with leadership and some growth elements.

So over the coming 15 months we have five terms of

approximately 12 weeks each with a one week or so gap between,

where you're taking two courses at three credits per course during this time.

And these are courses built by entrepreneurs for entrepreneurs.

Our learning management system is a tool that will co-locate

all of our video watchers, our readings, our assignments, our guest speakers,

discussion forums, gradebook, submission of assignment, feedback of assignment,

collaboration with classmates, and a variety of other resources.

So with that, it gives you a single platform whereby you can go in and

really manage all of the business associated with the course.

Our video lectures are predominantly green-screen studio-based

HD-quality videos.

You also may, at times, see other elements that we integrate.

These may be interviews.

These may be field studies.

And other things that we're doing to liven up the classroom and

to add some other unique elements there as well.

The online element that is synchronous, where we would meet at a set time,

is ultimately up to you.

So with the nature of the classroom and the dynamic, global nature of

the classroom, there are no set assigned online activities or set meeting times.

What you see here is a snapshot of one model that may be one to many.

Or we may do some small group discussions from time to time.

And it's at the student's option if they would like to participate in that or not.

We'll also be conducting periodic office hours that are one to one online.

Again, at your discretion.

So the element of the online synchronous piece of the learning is ultimately up to

the students, and what adds value and what fits the schedules that you have.

Another big piece of the learning model that we're offering is that of

relationship building.

So as faculty, we're interested in connecting you with

prospective customers and partners, technologists and

experts, lenders and investors that we may have within our network.

So this is just a brief snapshot of my LinkedIn profile.

I'm presently at about 2,300 connections that are broad-based by industry,

by geography, by expertise.

And one of the key elements that we hope to bring to bear as faculty

is to help bridge some of these connections with our students and

help facilitate the launch of your ventures.

The students themselves are perhaps the greatest resource you're gonna have

within our experience.

With that, we will have dozens of students in our class.

And in this first fall class, I believe we're gonna have over 40 students.

This gives you an opportunity to see and

learn from students globally that are in different phases in their career,

that have different expertise, that have similar and

perhaps even common interests, but we're all unified and connected in this core

mission of learning about technology venturing and technology entrepreneurship.

And so we have a LinkedIn group that we've established and invite you to join.

We'll be sharing some more details about that later as well.

From a financial standpoint, we've worked to charge the minimum

that the University of Maryland allows for graduate studies.

So, presently for the coming year and our expectation for

next year, total tuition and fees is about $19,500.

With that, there are a variety of financing options available.

The tuition is paid, again, on each 12 week term.

So it's due over five installments.

There's also the opportunity to pay that monthly via a no-interest model as well.

There may also be loan and other federal programs that this would qualify for.

So if you have questions on that you can connect with us and

we can facilitate some of that information sharing as well.

As a graduate student, you also have full access to many benefits

including software suites, our library, alumni programs.

So we'll be sharing some more information about that with you as well

over our fall term.

So in summary we've given you a little bit of a snapshot of our program, our faculty,

our courses, our student profile, as well as some financial options.

So the online application is available and alive.

We invite you to that.

If you've been accepted, we invite you to enroll in our class for August.

And also, all of our students are certainly invited for

graduation when the time comes, approximately 15 months from start.

And we invite you and encourage you to apply.

Thank you.

Information Session

创新企业家：从理念到市场

与讲师见面