In the Virtual Enterprise (VE) program, students act as entrepreneurs-designing and operating a simulated firm in the classroom. Students interact locally as divisions of one enterprise facilitated by a trained instructor and support materials. Each classroom can connect with an international community of simulated firms (the IVE Partner Network) through a virtual economy (the IVE MarketMaker), an articulated series of events, and web-based community tools. The net effect is for students to acquire the soft- and entrepreneurial-skills demanded in today's workforce - for instance, teamwork, effective communication, and the ability to be flexible - while making concrete use of the content from their academic major.

This project addresses the soft - and entrepreneurial- skill needs of technicians by extending the Virtual Enterprise program to the information technology (IT) and biotechnology (BT) fields. The project is actively developing three courses:

Current Focus (for the 2008-2009 Academic Year)
1. veit-Careers is a drop-in for entry-level IT courses. The primary goals would be to motivate the student to pursue an IT career, and to give them an idea of the breadth of jobs in the industry and the underlying education and skills needed to achieve that position. In the engagement, the students would form the staff of an IT department within an existing firm. The hierarchy of positions would be predetermined; the students would research those positions, apply for one and solve basic predetermined problems within that capacity.

Future Work (for the 2008-2009 Academic Year)

2. veit-Capstone is meant for the graduating IT student. The primary goal is to put into practice their IT skills, while developing an entrepreneurial mindset. Here, the students would create a start-up business centered around a product or service that is IT related. While fleshing out the technical aspects of the product/service, they would also handle the marketing, accounting and other facets of the business. Business structure would revolve around different departments (marketing, R&D, etc.) and would not be preset for the students. The instructor could predetermine the product or IT-subfield, if desired, to move the class in a particular direction; it's also possible to structure the business as a "new product team" within an existing enterprise.
3. vebt-Careers is the Bio-Technology Virtual Enterprise. Its goals are similar to that of veit-Capstone.

This project is supported under National Science Foundation grant DUE-0802365. The views expressed are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of the Foundation.