INESC TEC organises workshop on entrepreneurship

INESC TEC’s Innovation and Technology Transfer Unit (UITT) organised the second edition of the SEEW – Science and Engineering Entrepreneurship Workshop – Leaning by Doing, which took place between 9 and 13 de July. This event was supported by the Instituto de Investigação e Inovação em Saúde (I3S – the Institute for Research and Innovation in Health), by the Engineering Innovation Institute of the University of Florida and by the University of Porto.

After the success of the 2011 edition, this workshop, which targets science and engineering post-graduates and post-docs, aimed at showing participants the concepts and practices of entrepreneurial thought and entrepreneurship, promoting an immersive and realistic experience. As part of this initiative, the participants were able to take on the roles of company founders, create a vision and execute a plan for their company – as they would in an entrepreneurial endeavor.

Using a combination of lectures, guest speakers, student exercises and presentations, the workshop aimed at teaching and challenging participants to improve their skills on entrepreneurial thought and action, which can afterwards be used in careers ranging from starting companies to planning and executing high risk R&D projects in large companies.

The event included a high-quality Scientific Committee: José Manuel Mendonça (President of INESC Porto, the coordinating entity of INESC TEC), João Claro (Manager at UITT), Mário Barbosa (President of the Institute for Biomedical Engineering – INEB), José Carlos Príncipe (President of INESC TEC’s Scientific Advisory Board and Professor at the University of Florida), and finally Erik Sander (a Director at the Engineering Innovation Institute of the University of Florida).

The result of the workshop could not have been more positive. For the organising committee and the participants the event was a success: “the expectations have been surpassed”, “a wonderful experience from a professional and personal point of view”, “a good balance of academic vs real world experience”, were just some of the opinions voiced.