News
APS1035, Go to Market Strategy, is moving to the winter term and will be a completely on-line course beginning January 4, 2021. All lectures will be pre-recorded and live webinars scheduled weekly. For more information contact Steve Treiber at steve.treiber@utoronto.ca.
Engineering Entrepreneurship Course by Professor Steve Treiber, Ph.D., P.Eng.
APS1061, “Business Strategy and Intrapreneurship”, short summer course. Every business executive and entrepreneur will encounter complex business problems they must solve. Leveraging some of the problem-solving skills that you have learned during your engineering education, this course teaches how to define, solve and communicate the solution to a complex business problem using an engineering approach. Each year we use an unsolved business problem published in newspapers such as the Wall Street Journal as the source of our challenge problem.
Students will work in groups to develop a solution to the challenge business problem. The groups will be given a package of material that identifies the problem in the first class and all groups will come up with their own definition and solution during the course. The inaugural problem, 2018, was how Walmart should respond to Amazon. This year the challenge business problem will be: Facebook™ is attempting to launch Calibra™, the Libra Association and Libra™ cryptocurrency. Libra will be a mobile pay method intended for nearly 2 Billion people who do not use bank accounts. The Libra digital currency value will be tied to a basket of international currencies to smooth out value swings such as those experienced by Bitcoin and others. Facebook™ is facing a number of challenges including skittish partners, regulatory and Congressional resistance who fear money laundering and undermining of sovereign currencies. Our objective is to develop a business strategy and plan that will bring this business to a successful launch. Guest speakers from the companies involved are invited to class to discuss their views on the problem.
APS1088, “Business Planning and Execution”, fall term. A course on how to start and run a successful Canadian business. If your ambition is to be your own boss this is the course for you. The course was developed and is taught by successful Canadian entrepreneurs who imagined, built and sold their own successful businesses. The course materials, lectures, and assignments are based on our personal experiences and published best practices. The course and materials provides students with a toolkit/recipe for starting and running a successful business, and through the course project an exercise in how to do it.
APS1035, “Technology Sales for Entrepreneurs”, winter term. At some point in the careers of most engineers and scientists, they find themselves with the need to convince their boss, their company, their co-workers, or a client to try some new idea. That new idea, product or service might be so novel that there are no easy comparisons to be made to something existing and proven.
Students will learn the keys to selling a “customer” on an idea, product or service that they passionately believe in. The course learning objectives are delivered via lectures, exercises, role playing, group presentations and homework assignments. The students will learn how to organize and communicate their thoughts and facts in a way that will increase their probability of succeeding in convincing the decision makers that they should take a chance on a new idea or innovation