IEEE Foundation

Mario Rapaccini

Entrepreneurship Education | University of Florence

Mario Rapaccini

Entrepreneurship Education | University of Florence
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Biography

Mario Rapaccini, mechanical engineer, Ph.D., is associate professor of Innovation Management at University of Florence, School of Engineering. He is also in the faculty staff of Sant’Anna (Pisa) and of School of Management of Bergamo University. His research interests include servitization, entrepreneurship and innovation He is also founder of Smartoperations, academic spin-off that develops predictive analytics solutions and facilitates digital transformation of manufacturing companies. He is a recognized as an Industry 4.0 expert, and he’s been actively engaged in training and consultancy projects with global companies such as Ricoh, Canon, Leonardo, Engie, IBM, Electrolux, Epson, Leonardo, Estra, Unicoop Firenze, Baker Huges, Service Max GE Digital. He has been in the founding team of the ASAP Service Mangement Forum, and director of IBIS LAB. He is author +100 publications on journals, conference proceedings, books and book chapters.

Title: educating engineers and STEM students to entrepreneurship

Subtitle: as stated by “Entrepreneurship competence refers to the capacity to act upon opportunities and ideas, and to transform them into values for others. It is founded upon creativity, critical thinking and problem solving, taking initiative and perseverance and the ability to work collaboratively in order to plan and manage projects that are of cultural, social or financial value. But what are higher education systems in Europe and Italy doing to nurture and facilitate the development of this competence? Drawing upon the experience done in the last 2 years in the Career Service team of the University of Florence, this speech will draw some considerations about the challenges and the drivers to achieve this kind of education as a systematic approach.