Tech. Institute Has UCSB Precedent

While Harvard's proposed institute of technology is a radical departure for the liberal-arts oriented University, the plan comes on the heels of an earlier project by the proposal's chief architect, Dean of the Division of Engineering and Applied Science Venkatesh Narayanamurti.

And while the details of Harvard's new initiative are largely undeveloped, Narayanamurti's implementation of the previous proposal at the University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB) may provide clues as to what Harvard's similar institute will look like.

By all accounts, Narayanamurti is the driving force behind Harvard's new institute.

And he played a similar role when he served as dean of the College of the Engineering at UCSB.

"He was instrumental in putting the initial framework together," says Tim G. Schwartz, Center for Entrepreneurship and Engineering Management (CEEM) co-founder and assistant dean of UCSB School of Engineering. "We couldn't have done it without him. He was a real advocate for the concept."

Like Harvard's new program, CEEM seeks to bring real-world business training to an academic environment.

Technology is the central focus of the program, which officially began operation in the fall of 1998, but some of the program's lessons are tailored to starting any kind of business.

Bringing in the Professionals

Narayanamurti's business education program at UCSB puts a heavy emphasis on outside professional involvement.

Among the programs it currently offers are a support network of entrepreneurs who advise students and a series of lectures on starting and managing businesses.

"We get a lot of heavy-duty folks [to speak at CEEM]," says Travis O. Apple, a 1999 UCSB graduate and the founder and president of an interactive CD-ROM and Internet design company. "They really know their stuff on how to start a company. They really want to share their knowledge."

Narayanamurti's program also organizes all-day entrepreneurship conferences and created a student association, called Entrepreneurial Technology Ventures (ETV), to encourage teamwork between students interested in the subject.

While in the past the College has forbidden student's from using University resources to start their own businesses, CEEM offers financial incentives for student entrepreneurship by sponsoring an annual business plan competition.

Students, working individually or in small teams, submit plans describing the concept for the new business and the steps they plan to take to establish it. The competition offers a first prize of $10,000 in addition to smaller runner-up awards. They school also offers two entrepreneurship scholarships.

In the past, Harvard has not offered for-credit undergraduate courses or degrees in creating your own business.

And if the CEEM is a precedent for Harvard's new institute, the College may continue to avoid formal offerings in these areas.

The CEEM itself does not offer any for-credit courses or award any degrees.

Praising the Program

Student entrepreneurs at Harvard expressed excitement about the proposed new institute here.

And students at UCSB said their similar institute has indeed been a valuable entrepreneurial education.

"Before I really got involved in this, the process of starting up a company seemed rather mysterious," says Kevin M. Gee, president of ETV and a second year engineering graduate student at UCSB.

Gee says that the program has now given him enough tools and knowledge to start his own business. He also says that the lessons he has learned through CEEM are not skills that can be learned through a textbook.

"Now that [CEEM] is here, its added quite a bit," Apple says. "It gives you enough information and driving force to go out there."

Different Circumstances

But while this is Narayanamurti's second attempt to bring entrepreneurship to the college campus, the schools involved are very different.

"The flavor may be similar, but they're different institutions and different locations--in Santa Barbara, you're in California, and Santa Barbara is a compact city," Narayanamurti says. "It could be quite similar in that it has a strong flavor in engineering and computer science, but Santa Barbara has no business school."

CEEM participants say UCSB's program was created in part to compensate for the lack of a business school on the school's campus. As a result, CEEM allied itself with the economics department for its Faculty expertise about the business end of entrepreneurship.

Harvard, on the other hand, has a world-class business school, and DEAS officials say they hope to bring already-developed Business School resources to undergraduates across the river who currently have few Business School joint ventures available to them.

Deep Pocket Differences

While it is unclear how the University will fund its proposed institute, CEEM received no continuing support from UCSB.

According to Schwartz, UCSB officials gave only limited start-up support and office space to the program, but does not provide any ongoing financial support.

CEEM is currently in the midst of fundraising both to support operating experiences and to build an endowment. Schwartz says the fundraising has been highly successful so far, but the lack of money is limiting the program from doing as much as they hope to in the future.

Details of University involvement in the institute's funding have not been released, although Harvard hopes to have the institute up and running by fall. But given the University's $14.4 billion endowment and legendary fundraising clout, Harvard's new institute will likely have the potential to raise a far larger endowment and to have a far broader scope.

Staying the Same

While Harvard has traditionally resisted creating formalized business education programs because of the College's liberal arts focus, the CEEM track record suggests that a new technology institute is unlikely to divert large numbers of students from other areas of study.

Apple estimates that only 10 to 15 percent of students participating in CEEM want to go out and start their own business immediately. He says many decide to get five to 10 years of work under their belts before going out on their own instead.

And Schwartz says the program is also a success when it teaches students that entrepreneurship is not the right choice for them.

But Schwartz says the program has begun to fulfill UCSB's hopes--much like Harvard's--in boosting student entrepreneurialism.

In the year and a half that CEEM has been in existence, a significant number of new companies have been started by students, alumni and faculty of UCSB, he says.