When Raja Roy, Assistant Professor of Innovation and Entrepreneurship at NJIT’s Martin Tuchman School of Management, embarked on creating a new course centered on Space and entrepreneurship, he viewed it as both a challenge and an opportunity. His challenge was to transfer his research into a course syllabus that would engage his students and inspire their entrepreneurial pursuits. His opportunity was to create something of value—which he believes is the essence of entrepreneurship.
The course titled “Moon, Mars, and Beyond: Space is Open for Business” will begin this fall. Professor Roy is drawing upon his research career in which he has been immersed in innovation, disruptive technology and entrepreneurship. His prior experience in industrial robotics and sensors, plus his current research on space travel, is foundational for teaching the course.
“At NJIT and at the Martin Tuchman School of Management, we have an advantage. That is we have researchers who have published papers on disruption. We also can bring in business models to study and look into a technology in depth,” he explains. “All these components coming together in one school and one course is pretty unique.”
With all of this in hand, Professor Roy believes it is his research that will drive and craft the course, and hopes to bring out the enthusiasm and creativity of the students.
“Unlike starting a business where students can gather market feedback, the students in this will need to blend their knowledge and imagination about space travel and how it can be commercialized,” explains Professor Roy.
From his own experience he knows there are hundreds of complementary technologies and components that go into the space systems built by NASA. Traveling to distant destinations, for example, requires a tremendous amount of problem solving, and he poses, “What will space travelers eat over such an extended period of time away? How should they grow food during their stay on Moon or Mars?”
When his students are fully exposed to the challenges associated with space travel, he believes they will realize the great opportunities that are open to those who have an entrepreneurial mindset. His students will be tasked with identifying one opportunity in space exploration that has the potential to be commercialized. They will then develop a business plan which they will present at the conclusion of the course.
Since the class will have both business-focused and technology-focused students, Professor Roy hopes there will be lively discussion about innovative ideas and the merits of the ideas proposed by the students. This dynamic will serve as an exercise for them to learn which ideas should be pursued by an entrepreneur and which ones should be avoided.
“When talking about the business idea and plan, we ask is it disruptive? Is anyone going to come in and threaten the value capture from the nascent venture? This ties into my earlier research on disruptive innovation,” Professor Roy explains, referring to his paper, “When Dinosaurs Fly: The Role of Firm Capabilities in The ‘Avianization’ of Incumbents During Disruptive Technological Change”.
He also notes a paper by thought leader Clayton Christensen titled, “Meeting the Challenge of Disruptive Change” that explores this topic in greater detail. It offers a well-accepted matrix to understand when and why a large corporation may become a competitor to a startup or later stage venture.
Now that Professor Roy is in the last stage of finalizing the syllabus, he is taking some time to formalize his goals and outcomes that he hopes to attain.
“In the near term I will be able to judge the success of my new course by the ideas that the students will present at the end of the course,” Professor Roy says. “But if I were to view success in terms of years, possibly a handful of students, will have gone on to have successful careers as Space entrepreneurs.”
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