CPATH T: NEWPATH: Nurturing, Through Entrepreneurship, IT World Leaders

俄亥俄州立大学的这个项目为全球竞争和信息技术快速变化带来的严峻挑战提供了教育解决方案。IT行业所需的技能与新员工所拥有的技能之间存在差距。典型的美国本科计算机专业毕业生的教育和经历可能与国家需求不同步。虽然今天的组织必须通过创新来推动增长和保持竞争力，但大多数毕业生缺乏作为变革推动者的创业技能，对市场需求等重要商业概念的理解，或者对未来技术方向的远见。这个名为NEWPATH的项目旨在解决这些挑战。NEWPATH将培养对计算机技术有扎实掌握、对技术发展方向有远见、了解市场需求，最重要的是，在IT界有真正的创业经验的毕业生。毕业生将成为成熟IT公司创业团队的关键成员，或领导自己的IT初创企业。NEWPATH计划旨在培养计算机专业的毕业生，他们将在毕业前获得重要的知识、培训和创业活动的重要经验，从而成为行业的领导者。该项目的一个关键组成部分是在毕业前进行为期6个月的高强度沉浸式学习，在这个过程中，学生们组成小型创业团队，试图在创业过程的各个阶段创建一个创业模式，包括创意、制定商业计划、寻求风险资本、设计和构建IT产品/服务、营销等。虽然创建并成功运营一家IT初创企业的经验对于学生未来在IT行业的职业生涯做好准备是非常有价值的，但建立这样一家初创企业的最初阶段的经历，甚至是创建一家最终失败的初创企业的经历，在培养学生成为IT行业领导者方面几乎具有同等的价值。本项目有潜力成为全国大学生计算机教育的典范。学生将学习掌握技术知识，并获得足够的知识和经验，以：-识别资讯科技业的潜在商机，无论是新产品、工具和服务，还是现有产品、工具和服务的创新应用；-评估在追求新机会时所需的资源、潜在回报和潜在风险；-对竞争产品和竞争对手成功或失败的可能性进行现实的评估；-有效地说服风险投资公司和其他潜在合作伙伴创业愿景的优点。-帮助组织并与多学科团队合作，通过市场调研获得潜在的产品或服务；吸引风险投资；设计和产品开发；并通过使用有效、低成本的促销工具成功地推销产品。这些品质既能满足雇主的需求，也能解决美国全球竞争力的问题。

This project, at Ohio State University, offers educational solutions to the serious challenges posed by global competition and the rapid pace of change in IT. Gaps exists between the skills needed by IT industries and those posessed by new hires. Education and experiences of graduates of typical U.S. undergraduate computing programs may be out of sync with national needs. While organizations today face an imperative to innovate in order to drive growth and remain competitive, most graduates lack the entrepreneurial skills to serve as change agents, understanding of such important business concepts as market needs, or a vision of future technology directions. This project, titled NEWPATH, is aimed at addressing these challenges. NEWPATH will produce graduates who have solid command of computing technologies, a vision of technology advancement directions, understanding of the needs of the market, and, perhaps most importantly, real entrepreneurial experiences in the IT world. Graduates will be ready to become key members of entrepreneurial teams in established IT companies or to lead their own IT start-ups.The NEWPATH plan is designed to produce graduates in computing who will become industry world leaders as a result of having gained significant knowledge, training, and crucial experience in entrepreneurial activities before graduation. A key component of the program is an intense six-month immersion, immediately prior to graduation, in which students in the program form small entrepreneurial teams that attempt to create a model start-up through all phases of the process, including ideation, developing business plans, seeking venture capital, designing and building an IT product/service, marketing, etc. While the experience of creating and successfully running an IT start-up would be extremely valuable in preparing students for their future professional careers in the IT industry, the experience of going through the initial stages of setting up such a start-up, even the experience of creating a start-up that actually fails, can be of almost equal value in preparing students for IT industry leadership.This project has the potential to serve as a national undergraduate computing education model. Students will pursue technical educational mastery plus they will acquire knowledge and experience sufficient to: -Identify potential business opportunities in the IT industry, either in the form of new products, tools, and services, or innovative applications of existing products, tools, and services; -Evaluate the resources needed, the potential rewards, and the potential risks in pursuing new opportunities; -Perform realistic evaluations of competing products and the potential for success or failure against competitors; -Effectively persuade venture capital firms and other potential partners of the merits of an entrepreneurial vision. -Help organize and work with a multidisciplinary team that takes a potential product or service through market research; attracting venture capital; design and product development; and successfully marketing the product by use of effective, low-cost promotional tools.These are qualities that meet the needs of employers and also address issues of U. S. global competitiveness.