Teaching Entrepreneurial Action Through Prototyping: The Prototype

This article outlines a novel approach to engaging entrepreneurship students in a hands-on, action-oriented prototyping exercise. The pedagogical focus of the Prototype-It Challenge is on the relationship between prototyping and entrepreneurial action, and specifically the value of basic prototypes in opportunity identification and opportunity evaluation. Working in teams, students prototype concepts to address a pressing public health challenge (vitamin D deficiency in youth leading to increased risk of heart and bone disease) and then get immediate feedback from a video of outspoken 10- to 12-year-old children on the desirability of their concepts. The session, which takes only 75 to 90 minutes in its entirety, emphasizes prototyping as a vital process to explore, develop, and evaluate entrepreneurial opportunities. Because of its generalizability, the Prototype-It Challenge has been successfully leveraged to meet learning objectives across diverse teaching environments, including undergraduate, MBA, and executive-level entrepreneurship programs