The Entrepreneurial Capstone Design Project turns engineers into entrepreneurs. This rigorous course asks student teams to discover a real-world need, invent and build a product to fill it, and create a company that takes the product to market, all in the final eight months of their engineering degree—and all without the safety net of company sponsors or assigned industry projects. In interdisciplinary teams from across the engineering faculty, students learn to talk to each other, to work together, and to listen to consumers. Guided by engineering faculty and business teaching assistants, they bring their engineering expertise to bear on the difficult problems they have identified—how to save hundreds of thousands of taxpayer dollars while keeping stormwater ponds fresh and contaminant free? How to protect gravely ill children from potentially fatal strokes? In 2024 and 2025, student teams answered both these questions, developing a low-cost modular stormwater filtering system and an accurate, multimodal bedside monitoring system that continuously detects signs of stroke in children on life support. While developing the technology, the teams glean the expertise of startup creators, investors, and business Teaching Assistants. The teams receive limited funds to buy materials to build their products: $1500 per team from TD Insurance and a further $1000 per team from Launchpad, the business coaching program offered by UCalgary’s Hunter Hub for Entrepreneurial Thinking. All Entrepreneurial Capstone students must enroll in and complete Launchpad. Students devise business plans, create SWOT analyses, and interview consumers. They learn to expertly pitch their ideas, understand the market, consider the impacts of their products on people and the environment, and act on feedback to improve their work. The Entrepreneurial Capstone Design course helps students become resilient, make connections among their peers and in the startup world, and position themselves for success after graduation.
Finalist
Entrepreneurship Course of the Year Award
Entrepreneurial Capstone Design Project, Schulich School of Engineering, UCalgary ENGG 503/504
Finalist Entrepreneurship Course of the Year Award
Schulich School of Engineering, University of Calgary - Canada
"Entrepreneurial Capstone Course: Inventing the Future, Where Engineers Become Entrepreneurs"
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Summary
Key People
Dr. Colin Dalton
Associate Professor, Director of the Entrepreneurial Capstone Course 2022-present
Electrical and Software Engineering,
Schulich School of Engineering, University of Calgary
Dr. Hamidreza Zareipour
Professor, Founder and Director of the Entrepreneurial Capstone Course 2019-2022
Electrical and Software Engineering,
Schulich School of Engineering, University of Calgary
Alessandra Amato
Specialist, Venture Programs
Hunter Hub for Entrepreneurial Thinking,
University of Calgary
Kazim Haider
Teaching Assistant
Schulich School of Engineering, University of Calgary
Fuzzy (Faezeh) Shahidi
Teaching Assistant
Schulich School of Engineering, University of Calgary
Rylan Laplante
Teaching Assistant
Haskayne School of Business, University of Calgary
Ksenia Kabanova
Teaching Assistant
Haskayne School of Business, University of Calgary
Michael Francis
Teaching Assistant
Schulich School of Engineering, University of Calgary
Acknowledgements
The Entrepreneurial Capstone receives generous funding support from TD Insurance, who acknowledges that the Entrepreneurial capstone teams do not have sponsor companies and need to create their product from scratch. The TD insurance sponsorship enables the Entrepreneurial teams to work with a limited budget to achieve their goals, just like a start-up.
Images
Amy Miller of Vitalize: 2024 Launchpad People’s Choice Winner; 2024 Schulich Engineering Design Fair Entrepreneurial Category Bronze Medalist. Photograph by Ricky Lam
The 2024-2025 Entrepreneurial Capstone Instructional Team: Back row (left to right): Ksenia Kabanova, Colin Dalton, Alessa Amato, Kazim Haider; Front: Rylan Laplante
NeuraSense: 2025 Schulich Engineering Design Fair Entrepreneurial Category Gold Medalist Tania Rizwan, Lily Gentile, Christine Dowling, Fionna Dela Cruz, Shekinah (Yna) Arpon, Colin Dalton. Photographer: Adrian Shellard
NeuraSense: 2025 Inventures winner . UCalgary President Ed McCauley; NeuraSense team members Christine Dowling, Shekinah (Yna) Arpon, Lily Gentile, Tania Rizwan; Alessa Amato, Hunter Hub Specialist, Venture Programs; Kurt White, Hunter Hub Specialist, Social Innovation. Photographer: Ricky Lam
2025 Schulich Design Fair (Schulich Studio venue). Photographer: Adrian Shellard
2025 Schulich Engineering Design Fair. Photographer: Adrian Shellard
2025 Schulich Engineering Design Fair (Atrium view). Photographer: Adrian Shellard
2025 Schulich Engineering Design Fair (Atrium side view). Photographer: Adrian Shellard
2025 Schulich Engineering Design Fair: Awards Ceremony. Photographer: Adrian Shellard
Liftoff! 2023. From left, Program lead Alessa Amato and judges Jenn McDonald, Adam Pidlisecky and Megan Geyer. Photographer: Ricky Lam
Christine Dowling and Tania Rizwan pitching NeuraSense at Inventures 2025. Screenshot (0.34) from Schulich School of Engineering YouTube video “Schulich School of Engineering at Inventures 2025 ”
IMPACT STORY
Impacting lifes
Creating a startup in her final year of engineering never crossed Christine Dowland’s mind. However, when she and her peers—with backgrounds in biomedical and mechanical engineering, and subspecialties in software and hardware development—joined the Entrepreneurial Capstone, Ms. Dowland found a “safe space” to turn fledgling ideas into reality. The team created NeuraSense, a breakthrough stroke monitoring system for a population 30-40% more likely than other patients to experience these devastating neurological events: children on life support.
Ms. Dowland counts the “phenomenal support” of course director Colin Dalton and the engineering and business instructors as key in her team’s success: NeuraSense won the province-wide pitch competition Inventures, which included $16,500 towards future development of the startup.
Catherine Betancourt Lee also praises the support and freedom the Entrepreneurial Capstone instructors give students to explore new ideas. “The students really had control of how much they wanted to do, what projects they wanted to take on.” Ms. Betancourt-Lee’s team created Vitalize, a wearable fetal health monitor offering continuous, seamless updates on fetal health—a particular boon for expectant mothers in areas without ready access to health care. The success of Vitalize led Ms. Betancourt Lee immediately after graduation to a job at renowned biomedical manufacturing firm Boston Scientific; today, she is returning to UCalgary to enter medical school. Of the Entrepreneurial Capstone she notes, “It was a lot of work, but I would do it a million times over, just because of everything we learned.”
LEARNINGS
Lessons learned
The astounding technology the Entrepreneurial Capstone course participants produce is always eye opening, but the growth in students—their enthusiasm, discipline, confidence, and resilience—is most surprising. For instance, a 2024 group devised a brilliant new version of an Archimedes screw but found no market for their tool, so they put their heads together and pivoted, a full four months into the course, to a brand-new idea, FetchFinder. This sturdy, sound-emitting ball for visually impaired dogs won the Entrepreneurial category of Schulich’s Engineering Design Fair and pitched at Inventures.
Three key pieces of advice emerge from this example:
• Help students take a leap of faith. Give them what they need to find and follow their passion—technical and business coaching, infrastructure, and funding—and get out of their way. Even if students struggle, they still leave the course with key lessons about startup creation that prepare them for future entrepreneurial success.
• Bring in the business school. Business instructors, TAs, and startup creators offer profoundly significant perspectives and experiences outside of engineering. The strong relationship the Entrepreneurial Capstone has with UCalgary’s Haskayne School of Business and its Hunter Hub for Entrepreneurial Thinking gives students rigorous entrepreneurial preparation they simply would not get in a traditional engineering course.
• Empower the groups. Working with UCalgary’s Individual and Team Performance Lab, students develop their teamwork skills. Individual online assessments at the course’s beginning, a group workshop, establishment of a group contract, and a close-of-semester re-assessment help the groups forge healthy team dynamics and manage conflict.
FUTURE PLANS
What's coming?
Support after graduation: After finishing their undergraduate degrees, students need to find jobs. Understandably, further work on the startups established in the Entrepreneurial Capstone, including the years-long process of patenting technology and getting it to market, can slow or stop. UCalgary currently has UCeed, a donor-funded seed program that supports graduate students in turning their discoveries into companies; Dr. Dalton is working with donors to establish a similar program for graduating Entrepreneurial Capstone students. The program will assist with funds and offer former students a flexible support system that enables them to work part-time on their startups while maintaining full-time employment. Such support includes helping teams navigate intellectual property legalities, renewing engagement with the university’s Hunter Hub for Entrepreneurial Thinking, and establishing ties with the entrepreneurial community, including Calgary industry and local tech incubator Platform Calgary.
Expanding the entrepreneurial ecosystem: UCalgary’s Strategic Plan Ahead of Tomorrow enshrines entrepreneurial thinking, and the Entrepreneurial Capstone is ahead of the Plan in catalyzing entrepreneurial content in other engineering courses through project work and optional non-credit offerings like Schulich’s Certificate in Entrepreneurial Entrepreneurship. Plans to bring business students, advisors, and TAs to all the capstone teams, not simply the Entrepreneurial cohort, are also in the works. Cross pollinations between business and engineering will create startup opportunities and business matches for all graduating engineers. The silos between disciplines are breaking open, unleashing creativity and opportunity. Indeed, the Entrepreneurial Capstone example has inspired UCalgary’s Faculty of Science to begin working on an entrepreneurial course.
