Model for Academic Entrepreneurship in Biomedical Engineering Program for Vietnam

Despite many initiatives from the government, the education programs in entrepreneurship did not make an impact in the society. This is due to the lack of throughout and thorough vision of the leadership especially in the education of workforce that masters engineering, legal and business aspects. Consequently, the medical device industry in Viet Nam has suffered from underdevelopment and always felt behind the government's expectations. It is clearly that an educational program focusing on the production of commercially viable products and education of a workforce in entrepreneurship are long overdue. In the framework of the Biomedical Engineering (BME) program at International University of Viet Nam National Universities in HCM City we propose an educational entrepreneurship in BME orientation to address these issues. Our efforts are threefold. First, we established an entrepreneurship undergraduate educational curriculum in BME to address real-world issues encountered in this field. Second, we initiated a student start-up company as a sandbox to test innovative ideas in the research and development, mass production, logistics and commercialization of medical devices developed by students. Third, we coordinated three groups of engineering, legal and business to optimize the production outputs. Past experiences allow us to drive interests from BME students for entrepreneurship orientation, design appropriate curriculum and select instructors with genuine practice. A careful SWOT analysis of our curriculum showed that it suits the ecosystem in Viet Nam and the “for” or “through” entrepreneurship model. The key performance indicators (KPI) were also established. The components of this model have been tested. The model will be tuned according to the obtained results.