Manufacturing a non-profit corporation: STEM higher education embraces entrepreneurialism

The community college and university systems possess unique opportunities to showcase the integration of Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM) programs into cohesive, collective, and collaborative learning environments. Furthermore, from the support of government funding resources, regional educational consortiums, and local business and industry partners, it will be shown that college engineering teams are as capable as any professional-level business development team in producing tangible, physical project results. Specifically, in this paper a collaboration between a Connecticut non-profit company, ClearSky Inc., and a Connecticut higher-education program, the Life Support and Sustainable Living Program, diagrams the process to take a concept from design to prototype in just a few short months.