Creating the integral engineer

Abstract

A modern engineer is more than a technical specialist. Training an integral engineer requires education in non-technical skills, including social and ethical aspects. Therefore, Delft University of Technology (DUT) introduced sustainable development and entrepreneurship into its bachelor and master programs. The university of the future is developing towards an entrepreneurial university. As a result of an interaction shift of government, industry and academia, the university mission will evolve towards global economic development. Confirmed by the UNDP and the Worldbank, engineers play a significant role in world?s biggest challenge concerning economic development: poverty alleviation. Globally, only a few examples of technical universities applying development education exist. The use of entrepreneurship from a technological perspective in poverty alleviation is used as an input during the design of a new educational program titled „International Entrepreneurship and Development? at DUT. This program is executed in the format of an elective minor, separating it from existing programs and making it accessible for third year bachelor students from all departments. The minor combines theoretical courses and practical real life projects, performed in teamwork, a method especially recommended for engineering studies. Since the start of the minor program in 2008, the minor program has been executed twice with a total of 65 participants. After participating in the 09/10 program, 30% of the students expressed in interviews their ambition to continue working in the field of international development entrepreneurship. Next to a description of the lessons learnt, the paper analyzes the results of the program both from a theoretical education design perspective as from a practical relevance point-of-view.