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In the 21st Century, it becomes of utmost importance for the educator and learner to be mindful of the evolution and application of factors that govern the mental state. Many studies revealed that the success of a professional is strongly dependent on their emotion management skills to manage themselves and associated responsibilities in a demanding environment. Emotionally intelligent professionals are also able to handle challenging situations involving other people. These days many industries, research establishments, and universities that hire graduate students conduct specialized training to enhance their soft skills, mainly interpersonal skills, to make their employees perform at their highest potential. One can maximize the gain from soft skills if they are well aware of the state of human psychology developed in the form of emotional intelligence and positive intelligence. In the last two decades, the concept of emotional intelligence was created by professional personality coaching groups. These trainings are heavily attended by professionals engaged in marketing and organization leaders to enhance their capability in the workplace. However, emotional intelligence is mainly about being aware of the mental state and maintaining control of one's actions during various mental states, such as anger, happiness, sadness, remorse, etc. Aspiring graduate students in science and technology generally lack formal training in understanding human behavior and traits that can adversely impact their ability to perform and innovate at the highest level. This paper focuses on training graduate students about the popular and practical transactional analysis science and assessing their competence in utilizing this knowledge to decipher their own and other people's behavior. Transactional analysis was taught to students via Student presentation-based effective teaching (SPET) methodology. Under this approach, graduate students enrolled in the MECH 500 Class were provided a set of questions to answer by self-reading of the recommended textbook "I am OK You are OK by Thomas Harris." Each student individually answered the assignment questions and then worked in the group to prepare a group presentation for the in-class discussion. Three group discussions were conducted to present different views about the four types of transactions and underlying human traits. Before transactional analysis training, students were also trained in Positive intelligence psychology tools for a similar objective. After the discussion, students were surveyed about the depth of their understanding. Students also reflected their views on the utility of transactional analysis with respect to positive intelligence. More than 75% of students mention that they gain high competency in understanding, defining, and utilizing transactional analysis. This study presents insights for positively impacting graduate students' mindsets as they pursue an unpredicted course of research that can sometimes become very challenging. 

Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) innovators lag behind their non-HBCU counterparts in the commercialization of innovations as they were originally set up as teaching and blue-collar trade institutions. There exists a strong need for education and training to bridge this gap by promoting the commercialization of innovations in HBCUs and thus transform next-generation HBCU innovators into entrepreneurs. HBCUs are promoting entrepreneurial education and mindset via changes in engineering education programs and curriculums. Several federally funded programs like the National Science Foundation (NSF) Center of Research Excellence in Science and Technology (CREST) Center for Nanotechnology Research Excellence (CNRE) are promoting innovation and intellectual property generation at HBCUs. NSF I-Corps Program supports the education and training of innovators about the commercialization of mature or patented innovations at HBCUs. The NSF I-Corps Introduction to Customer Discovery explores strategies in identifying key customer segments through extensive customer interviews, which is a fundamental step in the commercialization process. This paper discusses our educational experience in the customer discovery process for Pumpless Solar Thermal Air Heater (Patent Number 10775058). To learn about prospective customers’ attitudes and perceptions of the innovation, we conducted 30 interviews with potential customers (end users). Our innovation is focused on providing portable, cost-effective, healthy, and environmentally friendly space heating solutions. We tested several hypotheses about the value proposition of our innovation during interviews to explore the market segments for potential commercialization. During the Customer Discovery process, we came to know about new issues such as health issues caused by the dry air in winter. We also learned that mitigation of problems due to the current heating system required a humidifier to reduce health issues that added additional cost. Based on our interviews our innovation is suitable for customers needing: (i) Heating source mitigating health issues, (ii) add-on technology to reduce their heating bills. Our next step is to pursue market segments for our innovation. We plan to utilize the current experience of commercialization of intellectual property to develop training modules for the MECH 302 Undergraduate Research Experience and MECH 500 Research Methods and Technical Communication courses offered under the mechanical engineering program at the University of the District of Columbia (UDC). 

Prior research details the large gap that exists in the technological transfer of innovation between HBCUs and non-HBCUs. This is compounded by HBCUs being under-resourced and having a reduced focus on research and innovation. Several federal and private organizations are funding HBCU innovators aimed at transforming them into revenue-generating entrepreneurs. One of such federally funded programs, the NSF-CREST Center for Nanotechnology Research Excellence in the University of the District of Columbia is promoting innovation and intellectual property generation at HBCUs. Another federally funded program, NSF I-Corps focuses on training HBCUs innovators on the commercialization of innovations. The training aims at identifying key customer segments through interviews. This paper discusses how our innovation, the Pumpless Solar Thermal Air Heater functions and how we are promoting its commercialization using the NSF I-Corps customer discovery strategy.