Scholarly Life

Introduction to Innovation

Posted January 21, 2013

Do you have a great idea to pursue, but lack the business background to start?  The Harvard Business School can offer a way to build a toolkit to identify and form your new venture. Introduction to Innovation and Entrepreneurship is an inaugural University-wide winter/spring session course for graduate students and postdoctoral fellows, running on Tuesdays and Thursdays between January 28 and March 12 from 3:30 to 5:30 p.m.


Taught by Professors Bill Sahlman and Joe Lassiter, this course is designed for students who intend to start or join a new venture early in their career. By covering the basics of entrepreneurial management and entrepreneurial finance, it can help you identify areas in which changes in science and technology, consumer and social attitudes, or political and regulatory processes allow the creation of new businesses or the re-design of established businesses. This course also will give students foundational training and familiarity with the HBS case method, enabling students to gain even more from the other management courses offered through HBS’ 2nd Year Elective Curriculum.

The course can be taken as either 1.5 or 3.0 credits. The 1.5-credit course consists of 14 classroom sessions in Q3. The 3.0-credit course includes the 14 sessions plus a Q4 field-based course project with periodic meetings at the Harvard i-lab. To apply, send an email to Joe Lassiter’s assistant, Theresa Gaignard ( This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. ), attaching a resume, a one half-page essay describing your motivation for taking the course and, for those applying to the 3.0 credit offering, an additional one half-page description of their proposed course project. 
 
Integrated with the Harvard i-lab, this course is part of a broad effort by Harvard’s Deans and Provost  to ensure that Harvard students have the opportunity to put their ideas to use. For more information on the course, please click here.