About the Course

Whether you are a student, a doctor, an engineer or a homemaker, entrepreneurial skills will help lead a better, more interesting life. These skills include communication, innovation, networking, teamwork, managing money and sales, to mention a few. Behind every great product or service that we enjoy today is an army of people, who design, build, distribute, sell and maintain the product or ensure safe delivery of the service and entrepreneurship is at the heart of all these economic activities.

Length of Module: 14 Modules

Time Commitment: 120 Learning Hours

Assessment: 50% for module activities and assignments and 50% for a Final Exam

Prerequisites

None

The Lecturer

This module will be led by Professor Dr Mushtak Al-Atabi. Prof Al-Atabi is a Mechanical Engineer by training and currently is the Dean of the School of Engineering at Taylor’s University in Malaysia. He earned his PhD from the University of Sheffield in the UK and he is a Chartered Engineer and is a Fellow of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers in the UK. Prof Al-Atabi is a frequent speaker at international conferences and he delivered training and consultancy to corporates ranging from banks to energy companies.

Cost

The module is free for all online learners.

Certificates

All students who achieve a passing grade in this module will receive a certificate of completion. The first 500 registrants to the module will receive their certificates of completion, personally signed by the module lecturer.

For more information, please contact the module lecturer at mushtak.t@taylors.edu.my

Module Outline

In this module you will learn about the following topics.

1. Why Entrepreneurship? Entrepreneurship is the art of making the world a better place, through orchestrating various resources with the intention of creating value and enriching life. Entrepreneurship represents a set of skills that can be utilised by anyone to enhance the quality of life in both for-profit and non-for-profit contexts. In this module you will work on a real-life project, together with your on-campus and online colleagues with the intention of adding value. You will have the opportunity for your work to be assessed by successful Entrepreneurs and the learning will be fun.

2. Think like an Entrepreneur Entrepreneurs are very optimistic people. They see opportunities where others see problems and obstacles and they keep a rather romantic view of the world, believing that they can make it a better place. In this lecture, you will learn language and thinking skills and techniques that will help you think like an Entrepreneur, identifying opportunities and taking appropriate actions to realise them.

3. Build an Entrepreneur dream team An Entrepreneurs’ goal is not fix all their weaknesses, but rather to amplify their strengths and surround themselves with people who can complement them. Building a successful team is a highly important skill and in this tutorial you will have the opportunity to build your own team of both on-campus and online students to work with you throughout the semester on a project of your choice.

4. Execute like an Entrepreneur This exercise will give you the opportunity to work with your team members on a short project. The project will need to be completed within 24 hours. This will give you the chance to assess the skill of you and your team members as well as learn from the experience of other teams.

5. Focus like an Entrepreneur Being able to focus your energy and other resources on a particular project is important, especially as you start a new project. You will need to work with your team members on identifying the project that you will work on for the rest of the module duration.

6. Create Value like an Entrepreneur Entrepreneurs create products and services that we need and desire to have. These products and services make life easier, safer and more enjoyable. They affect the way work, study and play. Entrepreneurs achieve this through creating a balance between what is technologically feasible, economically viable and humanly desirable. Through this balance, product such as iPhone are born.

7. Mange projects like an Entrepreneur A short introduction to project management is provided here including the use of Gantt charts and identification of critical paths.

8. Learn like an Entrepreneur Entrepreneurs have an open mind and they are always on a learning curve. For them, life is a school and they learn most of the time from other people. In this activity, you will be asked to identify a successful Entrepreneur that you personally know. You will need to share with the class why did you choose that Entrepreneur and shed some light on what makes her(him) different.

9. Inspire like an Entrepreneur Entrepreneurship is a journey that you will need to inspire people to join you on. In this lecture, you will learn the importance of well articulated Vision and Mission for a business.

10. Communicate like an Entrepreneur Business is all about people. Whether your staff, customers, investors or the governmental officials, you will need to communicate, communicate and communicate. This lecture will provide you with a framework for an effective communication that can use not only in business context, but in your life at large.

11.  Sell like an Entrepreneur Understanding markets and marketing is an important skill for an Entrepreneur. This lecture will introduce you to the essentials of marketing.

12.  Manage risk like an Entrepreneur While Entrepreneurs are optimistic people, they have balanced view of the world with two antennas, one seeking opportunities and the other sensing for associated risk. You will be exposed to different techniques that you can use to protect your business activities.

13.  Be a global Entrepreneur Entrepreneurs realise that the world is their staff recruitment field, source of raw materials and market. Hence a global attitude is very important for an Entrepreneur. This lecture will expose you to the global dimension of Entrepreneurship.

14.  Closure A finale for the course with reflections on the learning that took place.