The ESTE™ framework identifies an individual’s preference towards conceptual thinking consistent with an entrepreneurial, scientific, technological, or engineering mindset (Figure 1). The ESTE™ framework differs from traditional STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) where mathematics is folded into the Technological discipline represented in the ESTE™ framework and ‘entrepreneurial’ becomes a new significant integrative concept.

Our tendency to gravitate towards a particular discipline in Entrepreneurship, Science, Technology, or Engineering can evolve over time, consistent with how our preferences in other areas may evolve over time. And our breadth of learning across disciplines (transdisciplinary) is predictive of our ability to apply conceptual thinking within a discipline that we may have never experienced (Figure 2A).

In today’s world across government, academia, industry, and the society at large, entrepreneurial thinking is a critical success factor and a highly-demanded skill by employers. What are entrepreneurial thinking skills? Critical thinking, flexibility towards adaptability, problem solving with creativity, and self-discipline and self-leadership to name a few.

Entrepreneurial thinking requires innovative thinking and innovative thinking requires innovation. Meaning? We need to expand our disciplinary boundaries to not only flex between the Entrepreneurship, Scientific, Technology, and Engineering realms but also flex across Government, Academia, Industry and Society in general (Figure 2B). Now more than ever, it is imperative that the ESTE™ framework and the conceptual thinking on which it is predicated, becomes adopted, fostered, and eventually embedded across not only disciplines but organizations as well. We need to flex our thinking skills to transcend traditional boundaries and adopt a more integrated cross-cutting approach in our collaborations. Our individual career satisfaction, and collective economic and social growth, depend on it.

The right time to introduce the concepts surrounding innovation and innovative thinking is now.

Santilli and colleagues assert that “future orientation skills develop throughout adolescence starting from 11 to 12 years old, together with an increase in independence, self-regulation, and personal identity”, skills aligned with innovative thinking and entrepreneurship. It is during this period that future goals become more detailed with a focus on educational and professional goals related to the real world. Like the concept of a cross-cutting approach in our collaborations with government, academia, industry, and our society, Santilli states that “reskilling” and “upskilling” are increasingly important to the long-term sustainability of economic recovery. In other words, entrepreneurship / innovation / innovative thinking needs to enter the academic curriculum during middle-school as students begin to associate their education with future career goals.

Innovation integration needs to take a deliberate approach from all sectors, across all disciplines, and at all levels.

Rather than a ‘top-down’ or even ‘bottom-up’ approach, innovation integration can begin within any discipline - Entrepreneurship, Science, Technology, Engineering – or any organization – Government, Academia, Industry, Society. Innovation integration can grow roots anywhere across the matrices. It can start at a singular point, branch out, extend and retract, expand with further breadth and scope, lay down more networks of roots and continue the cycle. The path to innovation need not be a traditional linear one. With every new root and over time, we can experience the transitional interplay and evolution propagated by collaboration, partnership, and mutual commitment, so that one day, the concept of innovation becomes a mainstay of our educational and household lexicon.

Circling back to the ESTE™ framework - the entrepreneurs create innovation, the engineer creates function, the scientist creates discovery, and the technologists create utility. Imagine the scientist collaborating with an academic institution in partnership with an industry start-up, driven by the societal need for pursuit of the next innovative solution for water conservation. The possibilities become endless.

How to integrate innovation.

1.    Network and partner with different organizations (i.e., Government, Academia, Industry, Society) in your next creative endeavor

2.    Integrate innovative thinking into your next project

3.    Engage in an innovative approach to solve a problem

[Etzkowitz H and Zhou C. The Triple Helix University-Industry-Government Innovation and Entrepreneurship. Abingdon, Oxon and New York, New York, Routledge, 2018; Santilli S, Ginevra MC, Sgaramella T, et al. Design My Future: An Instrument to Assess Future Orientation and Resilience. Journal of Career Assessment, 2015]

ESTE® Leverage - founded in the belief that Entrepreneurship, Science, Technology, and Engineering are innate in each of us - grounded in the science of learning & assessment – dedicated to the realized potential in every individual.