multidisciplinary collaboration

Entrepreneurial Ventures for Journalists

Baruch College, 2009 - $21,200

Currently there is a collaboration between the CUNY Graduate School of Journalism and Baruch College’s Zicklin School of Business. They are working on The Local, an initiative to build a hyper-local news community in certain areas of Brooklyn and New Jersey as requested by the New York Times. Extending this collaboration, the two programs seek to address the journalism crisis (the idea that many consumers are not getting their news in the traditional way anymore, and that there exists a need for a new perspective to reinvigorate the journalism model). The first phase of the project consists of the launch of a new course, Entrepreneurial Ventures for Journalists. The course will be open to students in both programs. Students will work in multidisciplinary teams and progress through the problem recognition, concept paper development, and business plan development processes. Faculty mentors will be assigned to each student team. After judging by a panel of various professionals, some student-developed ventures will receive seed funding from a McCormick Foundation grant (via the School of Journalism). In the second phase, funded ventures will be accepted into the Innovation Incubator, a support system for news ventures. Business plans will be refined and elements of marketing and strategy will be developed.

Facilitating Entrepreneurship in Lighting

Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, 2009 - $29,394

The Lighting Research Center (LRC) at RPI is a well-established research and educational institution dedicated to lighting. With this grant, RPI is adding an entrepreneurial component to its MS in Architectural Sciences with a Concentration in Lighting program. To address societal and environmental needs, entrepreneurship will become an integral part of the program. With NCIIA funding, a multidisciplinary team of faculty and graduate students, along with leaders and professionals from the lighting industry, will develop a core curriculum that will make up the new entrepreneurship component. The new entrepreneurial component will include a new Leadership in Lighting Course, a master’s project (including a business plan and product prototype), as well as adding entrepreneurship to an existing Lighting Workshop. The program will be sustained by funding from RPI and outside industry partners.

Social Entrepreneurship Program for Technology Innovation

University of Puerto Rico, 2009 - $7,500

Currently, no coursework based around innovation and entrepreneurship exists at the University of Puerto Rico at Humacao (UPR-H). To bridge this gap, this grant will create the Social Entrepreneurship Program for Technology Innovation (SEPTI) at the university. The program will bring together students from physics, electronics, biology, chemistry, computational mathematics, and business into teams. In the two-series course program, the focus will be on idea generation for socially beneficial needs and the creation of business plans. Four teams will develop products, receiving individualized consultations from experts.

Enhancing Entrepreneurship Education and Training via the Rutgers Entrepreneurship Lab

Rutgers University, 2009 - $10,000

This grant will help to meet the demand at Rutgers for more entrepreneurship-focused education by creating educational and training materials for the Rutgers Entrepreneurship Lab (REL). The REL will become part of the Business, Engineering, Science, and Technology Institute (BEST) at RU, a new interdisciplinary institute created by the Business school. The benefits of BEST include windows for hands-on, real-life study through project and case studies; internship and employment opportunity; and the generation of actual business plans based on real IP. Activities of the Rutgers Startup Fund, a donation-funded program that identifies, funds, and advises promising Rutgers IP, will be integrated with this new educational program. The Rutgers Entrepreneurship Society, a student-run organization, and the Next-Phase Workshops, a continuing education program that focuses on business intelligence for startups and small companies, will also serve as outreach and extension activities for REL. In accordance with the supply-chain of innovation commercialization, the proposed REL will be divided into “innovation stations,” stations that concentrate on a different element of the innovation/entrepreneurship process. Students will be able to progress in an organized and efficient manner in order to meet their goals. Stations include a brainstorming area, a technical area, and a mentoring area.

New Futures for Human Health and Enhancement: An Exploration of Nanotechnology-based Product Concepts in InnovationSpace

Arizona State University, 2006 - $30,445

This grant supports a course at ASU in which teams of undergraduates design and develop new nanotechnology devices in the areas of human health and enhancement. The course is driven by three key pedagogical ideas: transdisciplinary team-based learning; Integrated Innovation, a model of product development; and the development of intellectual property for transfer to the marketplace.

Entrepreneurship through Experiential Learning and Community Service

University of Cincinnati, 2006 - $30,500

This grant supports the development of a two-quarter undergraduate-level honors course entitled "Entrepreneurship through Innovative Interdisciplinary Projects in Technology and Community Service" to be offered in spring and fall 2007. The course entails student E-Teams partnering with a nonprofit agency to develop solutions to specific issues the agency faces. Once solutions are devised, E-Teams will assess the technical and commercial viability of the solutions themselves. The course will be taught by seven faculty members from four disciplines. During the initial implementation of the course, both students and faculty will attend a private seminar each quarter at Eureka! Ranch, a private think tank with a focus on innovation, marketing and personal leadership.

Transforming Engineering Capstone to a Radiant Entrepreneurial Program

University of Idaho, 2006 - $18,000

The University of Idaho is in the process of developing the Vandal Innovation and Enterprise Works (VIEW), a cross-disciplinary entrepreneurship program that brings together UI community members around learning about entrepreneurship, social responsibility, and "creating results that matter". To date, VIEW has developed an organizational structure, marketed the idea to the UI administration, gained funding from all UI deans, and created a part-time director position. Further, VIEW has raised $50,000 to support an annual business plan competition, and held the first competition. Finally, VIEW has launched a new interdisciplinary course in entrepreneurship, Business 414, which resulted in eight E-Teams.

This grant supports the next phase of VIEW development. UI faculty intend to build a diverse community through cross-discipline courses and the business plan competition, and create successes with high profile E-Teams to show what is possible through meaningful collaboration. To achieve these goals, VIEW intends to: 1) build collaboration among the faculty who teach Business 414 and the senior engineering capstone courses; 2) link those courses with the business plan competition; 3) remove UI institutional boundaries to student course involvement; 4) negotiate faculty rewards for participating in VIEW from the UI administration; 5) create a faculty mentoring program for E-Teams; 6) offer faculty development workshops; and 7) apply best practices of business creation and high performance organizations.

University of Central Florida Pathways to Commercialization Course

University of Central Florida, 2006 - $29,000

Over the past six years, the University of Central Florida has expanded its technical entrepreneurship resources for students. NCIIA funding has helped to support this expansion with two course and program grants, one for the Entrepreneurship Field Project course in technology entrepreneurship and the other for the Genesis E-Teams Program coordinated by the UCF Venture Lab. The program has spawned several E-Team ventures in partnership with the UCF Solar Energy Center, UCF Stormwater Management Academy, the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, and the Florida Solar Energy Center. One team received first place in the UCF business plan competition.

Now UCF proposes to develop Pathways to Commercialization, a course to help engineering, business, and science students develop raw technical ideas into viable product concepts and build them into business propositions. In the course, multidisciplinary student teams will identify promising intellectual property through the UCF Office of Research and Commercialization. The teams will research the commercial potential of the intellectual property and develop commercialization plans. During the course, teams will attend relevant lectures and network with successful entrepreneurs, lenders, and investors.

Entrepreneurship at Faith-Based Institution: Reading Group as Stepping Stone

Calvin College, 2006 - $4,550

Calvin College's long-term vision is to enhance the entrepreneurial environment on campus through the creation of an Entrepreneurial Design and Technology Center. The center will offer an entrepreneurially focused curriculum and extracurricular opportunities for students such as real-world product development experiences and collaboration with industry. Students and faculty will work together in developing and commercializing innovative products.

The grant supports the early stage planning process in the development center, enabling Calvin College faculty to define the mission and vision of the project and learn more about entrepreneurship. First, faculty from business, economics, science, art, philosophy, communication, and engineering will form a cross-disciplinary reading group to explore what entrepreneurship means within Calvin College's faith-based Christian perspective and create a vision for the center that emphasizes ethics and community service. The reading group will cover topics such as entrepreneurship basics, social entrepreneurship, entrepreneurship from a faith-based perspective, entrepreneurship success stories, innovation, and high-tech startups, as well as curriculum, institutional and funding development. Faculty will participate in workshops on how entrepreneurship can be integrated into coursework. In addition, faculty will attend the NCIIA conference.

Expansion of Our Technical Entrepreneurship Program

University of Miami, 2006 - $6,500

With support from a NCIIA course and program grant the University of Miami first offered Technical Entrepreneurship (TE) in the Department of Biomedical Engineering in 1999. NCIIA then awarded a second grant to continue the course, expanding it to other engineering students and offering it as an alternative to the mandatory Senior Design Project course. To date, more than 100 students have completed the TE sequence with good results, and several E-Teams have been awarded grants. One project led to a patent application, and many others have led to invention disclosures.

This grant allows for further expansion of the course, revising it to meet important new goals. New aspects include the following: 1) Transforming TE into a truly interdisciplinary course, including students from other disciplines by adding faculty and other partners. 2) Collaborating with the School of Business Administration to include business students in E-Teams for SBA credits. 3) Establishing a dedicated design and prototyping studio to replace the lab that was destroyed in a fire. 4) Restructuring the lecture series to improve student selection of projects, searches for existing work, budgeting and discussions on the design process, prototyping, testing, documentation, and the legal and business aspects of entrepreneurship. 5) Create structures for sustaining promising E-Team projects beyond graduation. Some of the TE course renovations may be transferable to NCIIA-funded courses at other institutions.