Smith College is collaborating with two Nicaraguan institutions and Grand Valley State University (GVSU) in Michigan on an entrepreneurial education project that brings together students in engineering, business, and development economics to design products for the community of Estelí, Nicaragua.

 

Three Smith faculty and five Smith students representing the fields of Engineering, Economics, Spanish, and Latin American Studies joined their counterparts at the other three institutions for a two-week short course in May 2007, held on the campus of Facultad Regional Multidisciplinaria Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Nicaragua (FAREM), a regional comprehensive university in Esteli, Nicaragua. As part of the short course students engaged in an import analysis of local markets to determine what products were currently imported that might be made more cheaply in country, learned and practiced brainstorming techniques to generate product ideas, conducted a community needs assessment and sought community feedback on product ideas, and further developed a handful of promising product ideas.

 

In the next phase of the project, students at each institution worked locally on one or more product ideas to further develop concepts and/or prototypes. For example, a seat for a bicycle passenger that can be installed retroactively on any bicycle, was developed collaboratively during 2007-2008: students on the campus of the technical institute Universidad Popular de Nicaragua (UPONIC) built a prototype, students at FAREM and GVSU conducted market research for several product ideas, students at Smith analyzed and refined the prototype and completed a patent search for related products, and students all four institutions explored economic resources available in Nicaragua for launching fledgling businesses for these kinds of products.

 

In July 2008, faculty from the Nicaraguan Institutions visited both GVSU and Smith to learn more about how entrepreneurship education occurs in the U.S., to make connections with additional U.S. faculty to expand the collaboration, to explore local activities in product design and entrepreneurship, and to discuss plans for continued collaboration around a Nicaraguan Innovation Center. The goal of the Innovation Center is to support student innovation and entrepreneurship in Estelí, Nicaragua and contribute to economic empowerment long-term.