Entrepreneurship in Sustainable Design

The present global crisis combines has both an environmental and economical sides. This situation presents designers with new and complicated challenges, from finding solutions for scarce raw materials to attempting to change consumer behaviors towards more sustainable ones. The economy of the state of Israel was and still is defined by a strong component of entrepreneurship as a vital part of the growth and economic prosperity. Hundreds of start-ups were started in Israel during the second half of the 1990's, as part of the technological wave that swept the developed world, and these were central to the rapid growth of the Israeli economy since then. This course for designers will allow the students to learn about the process of founding and managing a design-and-design-innovation-inclined business. The course will follow the process of creating a new business by describing the entrepreneur's role in defining opportunities, obtaining financial and other resources, the transition from development to production, managing growth processes and correctly building a global start-up who is based in Israel. During this course the students will be able to learn the fundamentals of the business plan, different options for raising funds and the various challenges any entrepreneur may face.