Innovation & Entrepreneurship Education for the 21st Century

Registration is now open for the conference "Reinventing the Physicist: Innovation and Entrepreneurship Education for the 21st Century," to be held 5-6 June 2014 at the American Center for Physics, One Physics Ellipse, College Park, Maryland.

We live in an era of immense opportunity for physics graduates: their scientific training helps to make them key members of industry teams developing new technologies or translating cutting-edge research into viable products. The future of the physics discipline depends on implementing new approaches that provide training for success in what is increasingly the largest employment base for physicists: the private sector.

This conference will focus on strategies for implementing physics innovation and entrepreneurship (PIE) education into undergraduate classrooms and will be targeted toward physics-department leaders. Sessions will feature existing programs that have successfully implemented PIE components (such as the Scienceworks program at Carthage College and the Case Western Physics Entrepreneurship Program), as well "success stories" of students who have graduated from these programs and started companies or found successful employment in companies as a result of these programs.

The conference will also include targeted implementation workshops and resources for educators who are interested in developing PIE curricula or in promoting entrepreneurship among their students and faculty, such as the National Collegiate Innovators and Inventors Alliance (NCIIA), which offers funding, guidance, and access to a community of practitioners.

Conference Steering Committee:

• Douglas Arion, Carthage College
• Crystal Bailey, American Physical Society
• Mark Bernius, Morgan Crucible PLC
• Bahram Roughani, Loyola University Maryland
• Randall Tagg, University of Colorado, Denver

For more information and to register (deadline: 12 May 2014), please visit the conference website.