International Business Ventures at Michigan Tech

About International Business Ventures

Quick Facts: About IBV

A multidisciplinary organization
IBV has students from more than half of the academic programs offered at Michigan Tech.

Ongoing Student Group
IBV was established in 2003.

An alternate pathway for senior design
Students may elect to complete a traditional senior design project or work in an enterprise for 3 semesters.

Truly international
IBV works with students in Central America and with several business around the world. Members have traveled to Ghana, Africa for clinical application of one of our own devices.

International Business Ventures at Michigan Tech
The International Business Ventures (IBV) Enterprise at Michigan Technological University offers a unique opportunity for students to learn how best to work cooperatively with other classmates as well as students and businesses worldwide to develop and bring to market new products for which a need has been identified.

With a hierarchal arrangement mimicking a functioning business (faculty as Board of Directors, group member as CEO, etc.), IBV presents students with authentic challenges faced outside of academedia to better prepare them for work in industry. As an ongoing organization, IBV has and will continue to help to create invaluable experiences for students from a wide array of academic disciplines which can later be directly applied in the work place.

Enterprise profile
IBV is arranged in a way to best take advantage of the unique skills and passions that each member brings to the group.

Multiple projects:
IBV has groups devoted to the development of several projects which members can elect to work on.

Sub-teams within a project:
To achieve high-level efficiency, the individual projects - the Infant Heart Monitor, for example - have certain aspects developed by teams within that group. A project manager oversees the entire project and holds accountable the team leaders who work with and manage the members working on that sub-team.

Again using the example of the Infant Heart Monitor project, a packaging team develops the models, materials, and mode of manufacture for the devices using shared constraints with the circuit team, who are responsible for the electrical aspects of the device.

A worthwhile mission
IBV uses the expertise of its group members in working to achieve the following goals:

Product Conceptualization: The development of innovative products and technologies. Sources for innovative ideas are from students, Michigan Tech's Intellectual Property office, faculty/staff of the university, and the surrounding community.

Business Plan Development: Patent investigations, market research, financial analysis, venture capital development, self-employment topics, legal aspects of business/engineering and business start-up.

Product Development: Concurrent product, process, and material design to identify optimal business solution for cost, quality, manufacturability, packaging and marketability concerns. IBV will take an idea from development to prototype and potentially begin a start-up company.

Sustainability: Solicitation of long-term funding from industry for the Enterprise.