A course created by Loyola Marymount University business professor David Choi and taught at both LMU and Otis College of Art and Design has been honored as the best new class for budding entrepreneurs by a national business organization.
The course was awarded the 2011 Innovative Pedagogy Award for Entrepreneurship Education by the United States Association for Small Business Entrepreneurship Education. The awards were announced at the association’s annual conference last week.
“It’s a great honor for me that this course was recognized with the Innovative Pedagogy Award,” Choi said. “It’s also a recognition of the work of our students and faculty, to make this collaboration a success.”
Choi’s course, called Product and Business Design, brings together students from business and design backgrounds and requires extensive collaboration across the two disciplines. For instance, the design students were given a crash course in finance and accounting, and the entrepreneurship students attended lectures on user-friendly product design.
Students in the course shepherded a project from inception to the final design stage, while navigating the clash of personal styles and cultures inherent in the team-up. Among the products created by the students are a new water-distribution system to reduce waste from purchasing bottled water, and a redesigned motorized scooter for disabled people that is more flexible and allows its users to communicate with others more easily.
“This course represents the kind of innovative thinking that we encourage at the Fred Kiesner Center for Entrepreneurship,” said Dennis Draper, dean of LMU’s College of Business Administration. “It was a smart move to bring together design and business students, who will be working together on exactly this sort of project once they graduate.”
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January 26, 2011
News Contact: Celeste Durant | 310.338.7708 | celeste.durant@lmu.edu
