Entrepreneurship students at Ball State University in Muncie, IN, will help develop commercial applications for U.S. military projects through Military 2 Market (M2M), a partnership among BSU’s Entrepreneurship Center, the Department of Defense, and the Naval Surface Warfare Center, Crane Division (NSWC Crane), which operates a research-centered facility near Indianapolis. Students will be given access to government patents and IP and challenged to find commercial opportunities for the technologies, explains Michael Goldsby, Stoops distinguished professor of entrepreneurship and executive director of the Entrepreneurship Center in BSU’s Miller College of Business. “This partnership provides students the opportunity to work with some of the best scientists and engineers in the world,” Goldsby says. “Students will develop business ideas around existing applications that are currently being patented. Bridging military technology with entrepreneurship education creates a unique learning experience for our students.”<\/p>\n
Next spring, junior entrepreneurship students will write commercialization studies for potential businesses based on the military applications they study. In their senior year, the students will be expected to integrate the technologies into business plans for presentations at national competitions and during E-Day (Evaluation Day) as part of the New Venture Creation course. A key feature of E-Day is a final pass-fail review that requires seniors to put their degrees on the line when their business plans are analyzed by a group of top business leaders just days before graduation. Navy TTOs, laboratory scientists, and entrepreneurship faculty will coach students who participate in the M2M program.<\/p>\n