What are the connections between the disciplines addressing entrepreneurship at ODU?

All disciplines at ODU share many connections that address entrepreneurship. For instance, you will find that cybersecurity courses provide students with important insights related to understanding cyber risks and effectively mitigating those risks. Learning this information helps students better protect themselves and their entrepreneurial endeavors against cyber attacks. As a Cybersecurity major at ODU, I have also learned about other disciplines by understanding how cybersecurity relates to technology, criminal justice, law, politics, and business. This interdisciplinary approach to learning emphasizes the essence of entrepreneurship, as it teaches students to observe problems through multiple perspectives. Many successful entrepreneurial ventures have combined insights from different disciplines to arrive at a holistic solution to a problem. Furthermore, all the disciplines at ODU teach students how to effectively communicate their ideas to others. Teamwork is also common across the disciplines, which comes in the form of group projects and in-class activities at ODU. This work encourages students to practice their communication, organizational, and collaboration skills that are essential for any type of career. This is especially true in entrepreneurship, where in order to be successful, one needs to be able to use resources efficiently, work well with all kinds of people, and present their ideas strongly.

Is entrepreneurship an art or science?

Entrepreneurship, by its interdisciplinary nature, is both an art and a science. It is an art because it involves a great deal of creativity to innovate a solution to a problem. Many times, creating a solution that is just adequate enough would not suffice and would need a more nuanced take in order for the project to achieve its full potential. This requires creative skills such as curiosity, imagination, risk taking and experimenting. Entrepreneurship is also a science in that it requires analytical thinking skills that are prevalent in the applied sciences. This includes the ability to research information, interpret data quantitatively and qualitatively, and observe different variables in the environment. Entrepreneurs follow the scientific method in some way to determine what is the right approach for their solution to a problem and how they can continue to improve it.

How is failure good?

Failure is good because it teaches us to learn from our mistakes, which in turn helps us improve. Entrepreneurs embrace failure because they know how much it would help them. To them, they see failing as a reality check that guides them on the right path to success. When an entrepreneurship fails, that doesn’t mean it’s all over—the entrepreneur can use the lessons learned to do better next time, whether it be by improving their innovation or creating a new idea altogether. Failing also builds resiliency in the individual, preparing them for harder times in the future. It gives the courage one needs to accept a challenge and do better. By not embracing failure, you are therefore not making the most of your opportunities, and you will not make your success a reality.

What have I learned from failing?

Failing has made me learn so much about myself and everything around me. First, I learned how to be patient with myself, how to temper expectations, and that trying my best is better than doing nothing at all. Second, I learned how to adapt to externalities, whether it be stress from an uncomfortable situation, physical/emotional pain, time management, etc., and to nevertheless accomplish my goals despite the presence of these obstacles. Lastly, by failing, I became better at certain skills, such as computer skills, that would help me greatly in my cybersecurity career. For example, troubleshooting is a skill that often involves failing over and over again in order to fix a problem in a computer. All the troubleshooting experience I’ve had throughout my life has actually made me more knowledgeable about computers and what they are made of. The same is true for successful entrepreneurs, the reason they got to where they are today is through committing errors and troubleshooting them to achieve a desirable result.

What ethical issues might arise related to what I am working on?

There may be some ethical issues that might arise in the entrepreneurship that I am working on. If security is not well-implemented into the ParkAid app that my team and I are designing, the confidentiality of my customers’ personally identifiable information (PII) would be at stake. In the worst case scenario, a security breach would occur, leading to several undesirable consequences for the entrepreneurship as well as the consumers. By putting this app out onto the market, we would become responsible for putting the controls in place for the safeguarding of sensitive information that is stored and transmitted on the app. That means that we are knowingly taking a risk in having cyber attackers violate our customers’ privacy. However, this is also true for every Internet-of-Things (IoT) technology-based company in the world. Also, for example, the ParkAid app may have a feature that tracks users’ driving patterns and uses this information to provide recommendations on accessible parking spots. Some may see this as an invasion of privacy, which is understandable. Because of this, we intend to make this an opt-in feature that is not required to alleviate some of the privacy concerns.