WEEF-GEDC 2016Seoul, South Korea

Boosting Entrepreneurial Spirit in Engineering Students via the Senior Capstone ProjectAly Nazmy, Dean of Engineering

• Abu Dhabi University was pioneer in integrating innovation and entrepreneurship in its curricula.

• Since fall 2012, the College of Engineering in partnership with ADU Enterprise, the innovation and entrepreneurship center at Abu Dhabi University, has integrated a commercialization component in the graduation projects for all engineering students.

• This component aimed at providing the graduates with some innovation and entrepreneurship skills in addition to the know-how of using the business model tools and how to assess the viability of any idea to be scalable and to survive in the market.

• The component included 8 hours of hands-on workshops on tools to help the students develop an initial commercialization proposal for their graduation project idea.

• The component was designed with slight differences between departments that focus on products and technologies, such as electrical, computer, and mechanical engineering, and other departments that are more oriented towards design such as civil engineering, architecture and interior design.

• This component covered the innovation in business model, and the different types of innovation that could exist in any business.

• In product- and technology-oriented departments, the course aimed to guide students to use innovative thinking and agile development methods, whereas in design-oriented departments the course emphasized on the fit between customer needs and how to innovate in satisfying those needs through design.

• This component is a requirement for graduation, and has proven to give students a new perspective in the way they think about engineering and eyes opening for potential entrepreneurial thinking.

Mechanical Engineering:

Portable refrigerator using vapor compression cycle which refrigerates a space of 3 liters to a temperature of 2.5 ± 1.5oC. The prototype will be powered using the energy harvested by the photovoltaic cell which will charge a battery for backup.

Sample Projects

Computer Engineering:

Design of a mobile application, supported by various platforms including tablets and smart phones, that focuses on testing people who might be suffering from dysgraphia. Dysgraphia is a form of dyslexia, which is a learning disorder. Dysgraphia, specifically, deals with disabilities related to writing.

Sample Projects

Civil Engineering:

Developing a Civil Calculator to be used in the design of a school with its parking lot using standard codes and manuals. The Civil Calculator is a software that performs accurately, as per the standard specifications of the Abu Dhabi Trip Generation Manual and the International Building Code, the calculations needed to determine the building area, number of busses, number/type of parking spots, number of drop off/pick up spots needed, just by inserting the capacity of the building.

Sample Projects