Creative E-Teams Developing Global Products

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Loyola Marymount University - $15200.00

LMU's College of Science & Engineering and College of Business Administration will develop and integrate three unique courses during one academic year: New Product Development, International Marketing and Entrepreneurship.

The project combines faculty from engineering, business, and applied psychology that have expertise in design, marketing/entrepreneurship, and team building, respectively. The goal is to form diverse E-Teams of engineering and business students who design creative products for international customers. The E-Teams perform product planning, market research, design, prototyping, and write a business plan. They focus on developing unique, high risk/high reward products leading to a factor of 10x improvement over existing products. The E-Teams conceive products that "improve the quality of life for people."

Six E-Teams, each composed of 5 students, will design their product around their customers' needs in different geographical areas. The E-Teams will address the different social/economic, environmental and cultural needs that affect their product's design. The students will interact both in collocated teams and in virtual teams. The virtual teams will collaborate over the Internet using ipTeamSuite software from Nexprise Inc. This project will integrate engineering, marketing and entrepreneurship for meeting the changing demands of the 21st century