Forbes Highlights Product Innovation Lab

Forbes.com selected NC State’s Product Innovation Lab as one of its 10 most innovative business school courses.

Business, engineering and industrial design professors team-teach the lab, part of the Jenkins M.B.A. program in the College of Management since 2002. Their goal is to give graduate students real-world experience.

“We expect the student teams to do primary, voice-of-the-customer research, and we push them toward prototyping,” says John McCreery, a management professor who helps teach the course. Students have worked on projects involving smart metering in the power industry, a conferencing system for physical therapy patients in rural areas, diet and nutrition tracking on iPhones and a heated blanket for people in wheelchairs.

The course was initially developed by Dr. Mitzi Montoya, former Zelnak Professor of Marketing Innovation, who now leads Arizona State University’s College of Technology and Innovation.