Professional Skills

Entrepreneurship education has become an important feature in many programs across higher education—especially in engineering education. A common goal of entrepreneurship education is developing an entrepreneurial mindset in students. Furthermore, a key competency of an entrepreneurial mindset is the ability to empathize with others.
Empathy is a cognitive and affective process fostering the capability of understanding and appreciating the feelings, thoughts, and experiences of others. Since entrepreneurship is about introducing innovations into a community, having a keen understanding and appreciation of the needs and desires of community members is an important entrepreneurial skill. This article aims to provide a deeper and broader understanding of empathy and its role in entrepreneurship, along with a brief discussion of educational efforts designed to develop an enhanced sense of empathy in students.