José R. Almirall, Ph.D., Director

Download Dr. Almirall's CV

The Entrepreneurial Academy coordinates all academic courses in entrepreneurship and other educational activities offered on a campus-wide basis. The number of such courses will expand substantially over the next five years.

At the undergraduate level, in order to maximize the exposure of FIU students to entrepreneurial thinking, entrepreneurship modules will appear in the First-Year Experience course required of all students and in other Undergraduate Core Curriculum courses, such as Technology, Humans and Society. A revised course in Entrepreneurship & New Venture Initiation serves as a University-wide introductory course, and the Center is developing courses in Business Plan Development, Growing the Small Business, Issues in Family-Owned & Managed Firms, Creativity and Innovation, Technology in Society, Venture Laboratory, and Technology Product & Service Development. Existing master’s programs in Arts & Sciences, Business, and Engineering will offer entrepreneurial tracks, and the Center is developing nine graduate level courses that parallel the undergraduate entrepreneurship courses. Within existing doctoral degree programs in both Management and Industrial Engineering, the Center maintains a focus in Entrepreneurship and Technology Management.

The Academy’s efforts will be supported by the Kauffman Entrepreneurial Professors Program, which trains and assists faculty from all schools and colleges at FIU to engage in entrepreneurial research and develop entrepreneurial teaching skills, material and activities that can be incorporated into their academic disciplines. This creates a varied cadre of faculty throughout the University with the tools to assist students in any major who want to learn to be entrepreneurial.

The Academy also coordinates a yearly Kauffman Doctoral Student Assistantship competition to support doctoral students in any discipline or department at the university to conduct research on entrepreneurial phenomena--the conditions leading to, consequences of, or the process of creating new for-profit and not-for-profit initiatives.

As part of its educational outreach to the broader community, the Center's FIU Entrepreneurs’ University provides local entrepreneurs with up-to-date training on how to deal with issues facing new and expanding ventures.