The techno-startup course of the School of entrepreneurship as an introduction to innovation

The modern economy is in dire need of innovators who can design the technological image of the future. The best way to train future specialists in technonatural recognized as a project-based approach, augmented business education. But research has shown that in Russia, project activity in its existing forms does not fulfill its main functions: it does not give students the experience of creating innovations, does not develop critical thinking, does not form an interest in creating new products or services, their implementation and diffusion. The aim of the research was to search for approaches, methods and forms of training that will form students’ desire to choose a career in the field of technology innovation or high-tech entrepreneurship, give them the experience and knowledge necessary for the organization of a technology startup. In order to test the found pedagogical solutions, the techno-startup course of the school of entrepreneurship as an introduction to innovation. The study showed that the introduction of psychological training (teaching students the techniques of generating and testing ideas, empathy, conducting in-depth interviews, team building, planning, etc.), gamification of all types of classes, the development of course tasks as a tool for the development of design- and business thinking of students, monitoring the development of students ‘ competencies and components of their thinking with the help of specially prepared trackers, building the stages of the educational project in accordance with the stages of a real technology startup (the introduction of empathy stages, MVP, attracting external funding), allowed us to achieve the goal of the study.