Lawrence Technological University and the 19 other colleges and universities that comprise the Kern Entrepreneurship Education Network (KEEN) were awarded a Gold Edison Award in the category of Collaborative Networks and Support at the Edison Awards 25th anniversary celebration on April 28, 2012 in New York City.

The Edison Awards promote the time-tested characteristics of innovation of visionaries such as Thomas Edison. The Edison Best New Product Awards have recognized and honored some of the most innovative products, services and business leaders in the world.

The collegiate engineering programs in the KEEN network were recognized for their collaborative work together to instill the entrepreneurial mindset in all of the nearly 19,000 students they collectively teach. In addition to the rigorous technical fundamentals they offer as part of their normal engineering curricula, these engineering programs offer experiential opportunities aimed at instilling in the students a set of professional skills necessary for their future work.

In 2009, Lawrence Tech was awarded a five-year, $1.1 million grant from the Kern Family Foundation to further integrate the entrepreneurial mindset in the education of undergraduate engineering students.

In 2010, Lawrence Tech and five other KEEN universities formed the Dynamic Compass Network (DCN) to share innovative approaches to entrepreneurial education in curricular innovation, faculty excellence, a community of practitioners, peer collaboration, continuous improvement, and experiential learning.

Lawrence Tech took the lead by implementing a pilot project that provided benchmarks for the network.