During my experience supervising and working with undergraduate students, I strongly believe that commercialisation elements should be exposed as early as the undergraduate level.
Final-year projects, lab prototypes and design-based assignments are not just academic exercises, they are potential solutions to real industry problems. When students are guided to think beyond grades and reports, they begin to ask important questions:
Who can use this? What problem does it solve? Can it be improved, protected or commercialised?
Early exposure to intellectual property (IP), product validation, industry relevance and market needs helps students:
✔ develop entrepreneurial and innovation mindsets
✔ bridge the gap between theory and real-world application
✔ graduate with stronger industry readiness
Universities should not only produce graduates who can design systems but also graduates who understand value creation. Let’s embed innovation and commercial thinking into the curriculum, because impactful ideas should not stop at the laboratory.
Me With My Undergraduate Student
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