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Number of college students in computing has declined since 2000 by more than 70%. Women and minorities are highly underrepresented. Students are exposed to computing education late in high-school or in college. At that point, the population sampling is already geared towards students already interested in computers. This approach results in the small number of students and more importantly in the low demographics diversity. Exposure to computing principles needs to start at a much younger age in order to spark interest in a larger and more diverse student body. This work in progress paper describes the experience of a new computing course for 7th grade students. The novel component of the course consists in the robotics projects inspired by biological or artificial characters that seem to motivate students independent of gender.

It is clear that much of the world's technological innovation originates from the domain of the startup, an arena in which the United States has historically played a major role. However, while business and other schools have traditionally offered courses in entrepreneurship, only about one third of all new businesses ever reach profitability and less than half of all new startups survive more than five years. Much of the attrition of small businesses is a result of poor preparation of the founders and the failure of academia to treat entrepreneurship as something more than a purely academic subject. A new program at Hofstra University focuses on a fresh approach to preparing Computer Science and Engineering students in entrepreneurship by providing a curriculum specifically designed to meet the myriad challenges encountered by entrepreneurs in the “real” world.

Entrepreneurship is an integral part of the computing education at Hofstra University and consists of: (i) two optional, specialization-type programs as part of undergraduate degrees that target students with strong entrepreneurial interests, and (ii) open seminars and enrichment modules, exposing all majors to entrepreneurial ideas and activities while attempting to spark their creativity and drive for innovation. To educate students and help them understand the purpose, procedures, cost and legal implications of patenting and intellectual property issues and to give them first-hand experience in these subjects, we have included “patents and intellectual property” as one of the facets of the new programs and activities. In this paper, we present the implementation details and we summarize the experiences and practices and draw conclusions. Adoption of modules at Qatar University illustrates the generality and transferability of the approach.