The Professional Certificate in Innovation and Entrepreneurship distills vast amounts of research in psychology, sociology, marketing, strategy, and finance into a practical how-to guide for aspiring and active startup entrepreneurs and corporate innovators. Our world-class, award-winning faculty present a whole new understanding of entrepreneurial ideas and actions. At its core, we present a powerful argument that anyone can be a successful startup entrepreneur or corporate innovator by thoughtfully examining themselves and the business opportunity. By harnessing these insights within our curriculum, we share how to create and transform your business ideas into new ventures that are lasting successes.

This experience is valuable for startup entrepreneurs and corporate innovators. Learners interested in developing and commercializing their own ideas into a product or service-based startup can do so in this Professional Certificate. For learners interested in acquiring the knowledge, competencies, and relationships to solve innovation challenges within established companies and organizations, this Professional Certificate is equally valuable.

Our innovation and entrepreneurship courses are designed to map the lifecycle of a new venture, with learners crafting their ideas throughout the four-course program. With an emphasis on actionable projects, learners can select and work on new business ideas or corporate ventures of their choosing, and apply the lessons learned to their own interests. This is valuable for for-profits, non-profits, social entrepreneurs, and government organizations.

The University of Maryland is a global leader in educating entrepreneurs and innovators, recently ranked as the #3 public university in this category by The Princeton Review. The team leading the Professional Certificate in Innovation and Entrepreneurship created and leads the Master of Professional Studies in Technology Entrepreneurship (the #1-ranked online master’s program in entrepreneurship by BestColleges.com), the Innovation and Entrepreneurship Living-Learning Program (Winner of the Outstanding Specialty Entrepreneurship Program of the Year by the United States Association for Small Business and Entrepreneurship), and over 20 courses in Innovation and Entrepreneurship serving over 5,000 full-time University of Maryland students annually.

What you will learn

• Identify entrepreneurial ideas with entrepreneurial thinking (entrepreneurial mindset, motivation, & behavior), seeing (industry condition, industry status, macroeconomic change, & competition) & acting (value innovation & opportunity identification).
• Create innovative business models to effectively design value propositions, assemble and lead a well-comprised team, pursue big ideas that really matter to customers, and craft a financial model that minimizes risks and maximizing your success.
• Explore the marketing of innovations by learning tactics to gather marketing research and customer intelligence, understanding the need for adopting a customer-orientation, and applying marketing strategies to dynamic environments.
• Build financing strategies with an understanding of short-term finance alternatives, capital structures, cost of capital, sources of entrepreneurial capital including angel investors and venture capitalists, and alternative sources of capital.