Announcing the 2024 Cohort of University Innovation Fellows

October 30, 2024/0 Comments/in Announcement /by Ghanashyam Shankar

Congratulations to the 164 students from 44 higher education institutions in 13 countries who have been named University Innovation Fellows this year!

The University Innovation Fellows program empowers students to become agents of change at their schools. Fellows work to ensure that all students gain the attitudes, skills and knowledge required to navigate a complex world and build the future.

These student leaders from schools around the globe create opportunities to help their peers build the creative confidence, agency, and entrepreneurial mindset needed to address global challenges. Fellows create student innovation spaces, start entrepreneurship organizations, facilitate experiential workshops, work with faculty and administrators to develop new courses, and much more. They serve as advocates for lasting institutional change with academic leaders, lending the much-needed student voice to the conversations about the future of higher education.

The program is run by Stanford University’s Hasso Plattner Institute of Design (d.school). With the addition of the new Fellows, the program has trained more than 3,300 students since its creation.

“Higher education institutions around the world need student leaders to be involved in shaping the experience of teaching and learning.” said Humera Fasihuddin, co-director of the University Innovation Fellows program. “Students can provide an essential perspective on what learners need to succeed and thrive in the world today, and students can take the lead on making the necessary changes happen at their schools.”

“These changemakers aren’t just dreaming about tomorrow — they’re building it.” said Leticia Britos Cavagnaro, co-director of the University Innovation Fellows program. “While lifting up their campus communities, they’re mastering design and leadership skills that will serve them for years to come.”

The new Fellows join the program from the following schools:

Aditya College of Engineering
Aditya College of Engineering and Technology
Aditya University
Alabama A&M University
Baylor University
Bowie State University
Central Michigan University
Duke University
Elon University
Hamburg University of Technology
Helmut Schmidt University
Hong Kong Baptist University
Iona University
Istanbul Technical University
Ithaca College
Lingnan University
Lucian Blaga University of Sibiu, Romania
Madanapalle Institute of Technology & Science
Middle East Technical University
Milwaukee School of Engineering
National Institute of Development Administration
Pontificia universidad católica del Perú
Prasad V. Potluri Siddhartha Institute of Technology
Rowan University
Santa Monica College
South Plains College
Sri Venkateswara College of Engineering
Swarthmore College
Tohoku University
Trinity College
Universidad Católica del Uruguay
Universidad de Ingeniería y Tecnología
Universidad de los Andes, Chile
Universidad Peruana de Ciencias Aplicadas
Universidad Tecnológica (UTEC), UY
University of Galway
University of Georgia
University of North Florida
University of North Georgia
University of Toronto
Utah Valley University
Vasireddy Venkatadri Institute of Technology
Vidyavardhaka College of Engineering
Wake Technical Community College

Fellows are nominated by faculty and administrators as individuals or teams of students and selected through an application process each year. Following acceptance into the program, students participate in a 6-week online training experience. During training, Fellows learn to analyze their campus ecosystems and identify opportunities for change related to innovation, entrepreneurship, design thinking, and creativity. They work to understand the needs of peers across disciplines and the perspectives of faculty and administrators. They apply this new knowledge and perspective to design new educational opportunities for their peers. After training, Fellows implement the projects they crafted. They continue to serve as change agents and leaders at their schools and beyond.

Faculty and administrators who guide Fellows, known as Faculty Champions, also have the ability to engage in a community of Faculty Innovation Fellows. This cohort-based program is a two-year experience that helps educators work to identify and design their own projects to make a difference at their schools. Led by a team of veteran Faculty Champions, candidates are part of a community of practice, collaborating with other faculty and staff from around the world to learn new change strategies.

About the University Innovation Fellows program:

The University Innovation Fellows program empowers students to become agents of change at their schools. The Fellows are a global community of students leading a movement to ensure that all students gain the necessary attitudes, skills and knowledge required to compete in the economy of the future. These student leaders from schools around the country create new opportunities that help their peers develop an entrepreneurial mindset, build creative confidence, seize opportunities, define problems and address global challenges. Fellows are creating student innovation spaces, founding entrepreneurship organizations, hosting experiential events, and working with faculty and administrators to develop courses. They serve as advocates for lasting institutional change with academic leaders and represent their schools at national events. The University Innovation Fellows is a program of Stanford University’s Hasso Plattner Institute of Design (d.school). Learn more at universityinnovationfellows.org.

Media contact:

Laurie Moore
Communications Director
University Innovation Fellows Program
Hasso Plattner Institute of Design (d.school)
717-982-1218
laurie@dschool.stanford.edu

New! Alumni Network

February 15, 2024/0 Comments/in Alumni Network, Announcement /by Humera Fasihuddin

Today we are thrilled to share an exciting development that marks a significant milestone for our community. A group of early-career UIF are leading the charge in forming an alumni network to address the ongoing needs, interests, and learning opportunities of Fellows who are now in their careers. We have been working with this group since 2022, sponsoring the Connected Futures Forum convening in D.C. with alums who helped shape this effort. Our alumni are in well-placed, strategic positions throughout the globe and represent unparalleled levels of impact and opportunity. We urge you to join this initiative at an early juncture to help shape this valuable resource. See below for details and sign up for the Town Hall.

With love,

Humera, Leticia, Catherine, Ghanashyam & Laurie.

__________________________________________________________________________

Introducing The Official UIF Alumni Network: Help Shape It’s Formation

TL;DR: Alumni assemble! A UIF Alumni Network is forming and needs your input. The initiative is independent of, but collaborative with the d.school. Our next steps over the coming months are to hear what’s happened to date, determine governance, and flesh out the initial workplan. Everything that follows is our hypothesis of what an Alumni organization would look like and do, but we need you to attend Townhall #1: What’s Happened to Date to help shape the strategy!

Sign Up for Town Hall

As we say, “Once a Fellow, always a Fellow” – so why should our passion for changemaking and connecting with kindred spirits be relegated to our university careers? It shouldn’t!

As a valued member of the UIFam, you are part of a vibrant and diverse network of professionals committed to making a difference. After years of requests from Fellows, the day has finally come: the formation of the UIF Alumni Network, dedicated to fostering impact and nurturing our network.

This collective effort has been years in the making, and is a response to the overwhelming desire of Fellows to keep the energy available and alive as you journey into the professional world.

Our Vision and Mission

The UIF Alumni Network is rooted in the belief that design has the power to transform societies and create a better future. Our mission is to:

Enhance Impact: Support initiatives that drive meaningful change through design.
Build Community: Strengthen connections among alumni and current Fellows, facilitating collaboration, mentorship, and growth.
Promote Learning: Offer continuous learning opportunities to keep our community at the forefront of design innovation, both in their personal and professional lives.
Embrace Belonging: Promote an empathy-driven world that prioritizes inclusive practices.

Again, these are all hypotheses. Come to Townhall #1 to help shape strategy.

Join Us in This Exciting Journey

We are just getting started, and your involvement is key to the network’s success. Stay tuned for more updates, including upcoming events and opportunities to engage with The UIF Alumni Network. Here are some ways to get involved:

Join one of the Town Halls on February 27th or March 3rd (virtual)
Get involved on teams: Participate in our initial teams to help shape the network
Sign up to stay informed: Don’t miss out on early updates and upcoming enrollment
Attend upcoming events: Attend exclusive events to connect with fellow alumni and industry leaders.

Sign Up for Town Hall

Feel free to reach out to alumni@uifnetwork.org with any ideas, questions, or if you wish to play a more active role in the network. Or contact Vincent by phone, text, or WhatsApp at 516-286-0002. Alternatively, feel free to reach out to Humera by phone or text for context from the UIF Team, 413-222-5400.

We are excited to hear from you,

Vincent Arena, Jackie Curtsinger, Dominic Gelfuso, Daniel Kleinman, Mahmoud Khedr, Nariman Gathers, Caro Vassallucci, Raneem Elsayed, Rachel Tate, Forrest Satterfield, Gerrit Olbert, KC Christopher, Bre Przestrzelski, Jade Garrett, Jonathan Puhl, Kenneth Brewer, RJ Lualhati, Tommy Clifton, Omri Gal, Christian Weiss, Dinesh Chintapalli,… and many many others.

2024 Applications Open

February 15, 2024/0 Comments/in Announcement, Training /by Humera Fasihuddin

Applications for the Fall 2024 cohort are now open! Nominate one cohort (hard limits this year) and submit your campus application by April 30th. We’re very excited to share that this cohort will also be going to Twente in Twenty Twenty Five … see what we did there 🙂 … That’s right, the 2025 meetup will once again be hosted by our wonderful colleagues at the DesignLab at the University of Twente in The Netherlands. Start your application today at https://universityinnovationfellows.org/apply/application/.

And, big news! A group of passionate Fellows have launched an Alumni Network. Get involved by joining the newsletter, attending an upcoming Town Hall, or joining a team.

Announcing the 2023 Cohort of University Innovation Fellows

October 27, 2023/0 Comments/in Announcement /by Ghanashyam Shankar

Congratulations to the 242 students from 63 higher education institutions in 15 countries who have been named University Innovation Fellows this year!

The University Innovation Fellows program empowers students to become agents of change at their schools. Fellows work to ensure that all students gain the attitudes, skills and knowledge required to navigate a complex world and build the future.

These student leaders from schools around the globe create opportunities to help their peers build the creative confidence, agency, and entrepreneurial mindset needed to address global challenges. Fellows create student innovation spaces, start entrepreneurship organizations, facilitate experiential workshops, work with faculty and administrators to develop new courses, and much more. They serve as advocates for lasting institutional change with academic leaders, lending the much-needed student voice to the conversations about the future of higher education.

The program is run by Stanford University’s Hasso Plattner Institute of Design (d.school). With the addition of the new Fellows, the program has trained more than 3,100 students since its creation.

“Higher education institutions around the world need student leaders to be involved in shaping the experience of teaching and learning,” said Humera Fasihuddin, co-director of the University Innovation Fellows program. “Students can provide an essential perspective on what learners need to succeed and thrive in the world today, and students can take the lead on making the necessary changes happen at their schools.”

“The new Fellows are designing experiences that help all students learn skills and mindsets necessary to navigate these uncertain times and to shape the future they want to see,” said Leticia Britos Cavagnaro, co-director of the University Innovation Fellows program. “They are giving back to their school communities, and at the same time, they’re learning strategies around design, creativity and leadership that will help them in their careers.”

The new Fellows join the program from the following schools:

Aditya College of Engineering
Aditya College of Engineering and Technology
Aditya Engineering College
Alabama A&M University
Catholic University of Uruguay
Central Michigan University
Clark Atlanta University
Clemson University
Elizabeth City State University
Elon University
FH Salzburg (Salzburg University of Applied Sciences)
Fisk University
Florida Agricultural and Mechanical University
Fordham University
George Fox University
Grand Valley State University
Hamburg University of Technology
Hong Kong Baptist University
Iona University
Jackson State University
Johnson C. Smith University
Lincoln University
Lingnan University
Lucian Blaga University of Sibiu, Romania
Madanapalle Institute of Technology & Science
Menlo College
Michigan Technological University
Milwaukee School of Engineering
Mississippi Valley State University
Morehouse College
Morgan State University
National Institute of Development Administration
North Carolina Central University
North Dakota State University
Oakwood University
Prasad V. Potluri Siddhartha Institute of Technology
Rowan University
Sophia University
Spelman College
St. Augustine’s University
St. Edward’s University
Swarthmore College
Tennessee State University
The College of New Jersey
The University of Zambia
Tohoku University
Towson University
Universidad de Ingeniería y Tecnología
Universidad de los Andes, Chile
Universidad de Montevideo
Universidad Peruana de Ciencias Aplicadas
Universidad Tecnológica (UTEC), UY
University of Cincinnati
University of Galway
University of Georgia
University of North Florida
University of Technology, Sydney
University of Tulsa
University of Twente
Utah Valley University
Vasireddy Venkatadri Institute of Technology
Virginia State University
York College of Pennsylvania

Fellows are nominated by faculty and administrators as individuals or teams of students and selected through an application process each year. Following acceptance into the program, students participate in a 6-week online training experience. During training, Fellows learn to analyze their campus ecosystems and identify opportunities for change related to innovation, entrepreneurship, design thinking, and creativity. They work to understand the needs of peers across disciplines and the perspectives of faculty and administrators. They apply this new knowledge and perspective to design new educational opportunities for their peers. After training, Fellows implement the projects they crafted. They continue to serve as change agents and leaders at their schools and beyond.

Faculty and administrators who guide Fellows, known as Faculty Champions, also have the ability to engage in a community of Faculty Innovation Fellows. This cohort-based program is a two-year experience that helps educators work to identify and design their own projects to make a difference at their schools. Led by a team of veteran Faculty Champions, candidates are part of a community of practice, collaborating with other faculty and staff from around the world to learn new change strategies.

About the University Innovation Fellows program:

The University Innovation Fellows program empowers students to become agents of change at their schools. The Fellows are a global community of students leading a movement to ensure that all students gain the necessary attitudes, skills and knowledge required to compete in the economy of the future. These student leaders from schools around the country create new opportunities that help their peers develop an entrepreneurial mindset, build creative confidence, seize opportunities, define problems and address global challenges. Fellows are creating student innovation spaces, founding entrepreneurship organizations, hosting experiential events, and working with faculty and administrators to develop courses. They serve as advocates for lasting institutional change with academic leaders and represent their schools at national events. The University Innovation Fellows is a program of Stanford University’s Hasso Plattner Institute of Design (d.school). Learn more at universityinnovationfellows.org.

Media contact:

Laurie Moore
Communications Director
University Innovation Fellows Program
Hasso Plattner Institute of Design (d.school)
717-982-1218
laurie@dschool.stanford.edu

Just Breathe

January 4, 2023/0 Comments/in Change Forward /by Vicky Chung

My anxiety and grief management journal

By Navya Chelluboyina, University Innovation Fellow from Kakinada Institute of Engineering and Technology

Editor’s note: This article mentions suicide

This article was featured in the Perspectives section of the latest edition of the journal, Change Forward, published by the University Innovation Fellows program. Read the journal online here.

Working from home, lockdown did not affect me much as an employee of a multinational corporation. Life remained undisturbed even after relocation of work location. Piles of targets to meet daily along with home routine kept me busy for months after lockdown was imposed.

Everything was in flow! I lost track of days that went by without talking to a special close person in my life. I kept on postponing my thought of giving her a phone call to have a small chat. One day when I did, I received the news that she quit her life (suicide). I denied the very fact that she no longer existed. I believed it wasn’t true yet I was afraid to ask for the truth one more time and chose to stay in denial not for minutes or days but for months.

“Little did I know I had high functioning anxiety. When I went to little family gatherings, my whole body shivered with fear out of nowhere.”

I shut myself behind my room door from everything that connected me to the outside world. I resigned from the company I had then worked in. I cut off communication with everyone. I completely isolated myself.

Little did I know I had high functioning anxiety. When I went to little family gatherings, my whole body shivered with fear out of nowhere. I was able to reach out to one or two friends who kept on saying “try to stay calm” while my whole consciousness shifted into my brain, bouncing side to side with sharp unfocused consciousness, going blind to the physical world around me. I made instant judgments that everything and everyone around me were having bad intentions about me. I used unhealthy distractions just so that I didn’t need to feel the pain and suffering. That temporary dopamine kept me happy for a small period of time only. So I got used to that temporary happiness more and more.

I wished it never happened and rethought every possible situation.“I should have done that,” “ I wish I knew,” “ Where did I go wrong,” “did I ignore or haven’t been supportive,” “only if I had the chance.” This loop of self-worth questioning kept on rolling inside my head for several days, draining me physically and mentally, and at the end making it another non-productive day.

The whole grief process and unhealthy choices disrupted my overall emotional health and cognitive thinking. All I could think of was bad outcomes, and focusing on career growth has become the most difficult and impossible thing.

“I kept on collecting coping mechanisms and focused on only one thing: consistency in showing up for myself every day.”

There was a day I got tired of all the suffering and begged for help. I felt being dragged down more as the choices I made haven’t been healthy so the very point of giving a start to change has become the toughest thing to conquer. The first thing I cried out loud and many times was, “I don’t want to suffer anymore! Let go of this pain.”

I observed that saying this out repetitively for a moment some heavy load was removed. I was desperate to change and I started exploring grief coping mechanisms. I kept on collecting coping mechanisms and focused on only one thing: consistency in showing up for myself every day.

In April of this year, I happened to see a call for articles for this journal. I read through all the articles in last year’s journal, inspecting the range of topics presented. I felt a connection with “Daring to Dream Bigger,” by Maria Romina Dominzain de Leon of the Universidad de Montevideo. She described a few meditation techniques which I decided to include in my routine. In her article, she carefully chose words for deeper understanding. From this, I acquired valuable information to self-regulate my emotions. Her article about herself gave me ignition, and from that point of time, I was led in a different path of thinking and attitude towards life.

I wondered — if she influenced this much change in my personal life into a smoother way of living just by her article with only words, perhaps I could also influence people by sharing my journey with anxiety and grief.

“Through this process I promised myself that I would hold on and not give up to the darkness made by my mind. I am proud of what I have accomplished, and I believe that you can accomplish the same.”

With that in mind, I would like to share my coping mechanisms:

My emergency tool to ground myself is “Mindful Breathing.” Yes! It is the most effective solution: 2 short inhales – Hold air inside lungs for at least 3 seconds, exhale through the mouth and then repeat 3x times.
Self grooming to stay away from negative thoughts.
Increasing physical activity mainly outdoors to deal with my crowd fear (rope jumping, running, going on dates alone).
Preparing my diet meals.
Maintaining a journal to keep check on my emotional health. Writing every thought that makes me feel blocked.
Most importantly, meditating daily as simple as focusing on air flow while inhaling and exhaling (2-10 minutes)

It can be hard to ask for help when you need it the most. I hope that this journal on my anxiety and grief management, and these coping mechanisms, can help you as well. Through this process I promised myself that I would hold on and not give up to the darkness made by my mind. I am proud of what I have accomplished, and I believe that you can accomplish the same.

Discover “Who do you want to grow into?” before thinking “What do you want to be?”

December 7, 2022/0 Comments/in Change Forward, Uncategorized /by Vicky Chung

A program to discover, design, and prototype your future dreams

by Stephane Yu Matsushita | Faculty Innovation Fellows candidate | Tohoku University

“Which class, program or career should I choose?”

This would be one of the most important problems that many students in University encounter, not only during their campus life but also over their long lives. The first-year student might ask “Which liberal arts class should I choose?” and the third-year student will ask “Which lab should I choose?” The master’s student may ask “Which of the various educational programs should I take in addition to my major?” or “Which career should I choose?” University offers a wide variety of courses, programs, and support to encourage students to be talented people or leaders in some fields. However, there are not many programs that can guide students to think and answer the question: “Who would I like to be, and what do I need to learn to be like that?”

The initial plan of my project was to develop a co-created education program by faculty and students. Students would design their own learning programs with the support of faculty, which brings a dozen variations of entrepreneurship and innovation education. I thought it was a very interesting and student-centric project, and I started interviewing students about what kind of thing they wanted to learn.

“Leadership” and “Facilitation”… sounds good.

“Sports,” “Hobby,” “Cooking”…OK, might be interesting.

“Something cool”, “Nothing else”….hnnn.

Of course, some students gave me very interesting ideas, but most of the ideas were hard to connect to an education program. The biggest finding from the interview among 15 students was that it was difficult for them to think about what they wanted to learn in addition to the curriculum in their major. Why is it difficult? By diving into a deeper level, I reached a hypothesis: Most of the students limit their future vision within an extension of their major. If we would like to change higher education to be much more diverse and creative, we should first give students the opportunity to think, design, and prototype their future with a diverse mindset.

After getting this hypothesis, I redesigned my project to build a program to discover, design, and prototype the future dream of each student. The program is constructed in 3 parts (steps). Through these 3 parts, students can learn how to think about what kind of person they want to grow into, how to shape their ideas in real life, and how to take initiative. Students can find themselves in unexpected ways through experiences they did not anticipate when they entered university.

Part 1: Future Vision Lab

FVL is a place where students can thoroughly imagine and create their own careers, and future dreams, and envision the future they wish to pursue and the paths that will lead them there. Students will learn how to find their dream and move toward it by empathizing with themselves, reflecting on their own success and failure experiences, brainstorming their future, and prototyping/testing their future.

Part 2: Prototyping Factory

PF is a place to foster a mindset of making ideas real through systematic prototyping exercises. Students will learn how to shape their ideas and adjust them to their needs by doing rapid prototypes and testing them out of the classroom.

Part 3: Future Challenge

Future Challenge is a place for taking the initiative to test the acquired abilities (future vision, prototyping mindset/skills, etc…) in a practical setting to enhance the willpower and challenging ability to take on difficulties. Several programs in terms of 1-3 months, co-working with a social entrepreneur, creating a business model in a global team, and trying to implement digital transformation in the citizen, will be prepared. Students will select one program which fits their wisdom and tries to put their ideas, and visions into action.

Everyone had a dream as a child. But dreams mature and change over time as we move forward. Maybe there could be a moment we lose sight of our dreams and get lost. It would be wonderful if we could have a program to help, guide, and mentor students to find, design, and pursue their journey to reach their dream.

This article was featured in the latest edition of the journal, Change Forward, published by the University Innovation Fellows program. Read the journal online here.

Iterative Mindset

January 28, 2022/0 Comments/in Change Forward /by Laurie Moore

Finding happiness in a constantly changing job market

by Mae White
University Innovation Fellow, IE University

This article was published in Change Forward, an annual publication from our program that features work by Fellows and their Faculty Champions.

A year ago, I came to my mom half in tears feeling defeated. I complained to her that as I prepared to graduate, I didn’t even know if I liked visual design enough to keep doing it as a job. I believed happiness could only be achieved when I reached a certain professional level, and I wasn’t going to get there if I didn’t land the perfect job. In hindsight, my hopeless outlook stopped me from jumping on opportunities that were not an exact match for my career, but were available at least. It made me wonder if this attitude was preventable. Was there a way to feel more capable of tackling problems by changing our expectations?

This brings us to the essence of design thinking. There are various phases of iteration, trial and error, and starting over, that I’ve ignored when it comes to my career. In order to better utilize design methodology in our lives, we must view our own careers as a problem solving process. By embracing this iterative nature, we can shift our mindset to one that is not only resilient to, but expects constant change.

The double diamond method is a tactic to create a solution by gathering information from stakeholders, users, and their environment to arrive at an outcome best suited for them. The original idea hardly stays the same after going through this process. This can be applied to our career journeys as well.

The discovery phase is all about finding out which problems we care to solve. At this stage, we need to decide which values we want to let dictate our lives; is it money? Is it a passion? Can we fuse the two? What does society need right now that I can provide? We may find the focus shift away from ourselves and instead the problems we find most urgent. As we learn more about the world around us, the “how might we” questions start popping up. Can we join companies that are asking the same questions?

The second step is narrowing down these experiences to a niche that works best for you, and is provided by a greater need from the community. Though it’s no easy feat, define which mission you want to dedicate ample time to (it doesn’t have to be just one! It may also change later). Finding the answer to this question can give us more confidence to start the “prototyping” phase.

Rapid prototyping is where we try new jobs/projects constantly and when they don’t work out, we should ask ourselves “Why?”. What did our superiors tell us? What mistakes can we avoid making in the future? Maybe there are new things we didn’t know we wanted to pursue further! In dead end situations, pivoting is definitely an option.

Finally, when we find that our efforts are slowly making a dent in the problems we try to solve, it means we’ve arrived at our solution. This doesn’t mean to stop! Maybe we start something new, or inspire others who want to create the same changes you have to work alongside you.

The main takeaway is that we will feel defeated if we create a plan or idea of how our careers ought to be. Design thinking is all about being flexible and willing to pivot when an opportunity presents itself or our environment changes. Happiness can be attained throughout our design process; it’s not waiting for us at the end. Deciding to have an optimistic outlook on our circumstances, knowing that the road ahead will not be a smooth one, can make all the difference in motivating ourselves to move on to the next step. So, where will your design journey take you?

Influencing Students to Become Advocates on Campus

January 28, 2022/0 Comments/in Change Forward /by Laurie Moore

Why we held a paid changemaking workshop to empower student leaders

by Ryan Chapman, Joey Gruber, Marissa Morales and Lavanya Uppala
University Innovation Fellows, University of Nebraska at Omaha

This article was published in Change Forward, an annual publication from our program that features work by Fellows and their Faculty Champions.

While students learn the skills to implement lasting change in their communities through their college education, they are often not provided the context, time, or incentive to do so. However, numerous examples, identified both through our own research and through UIF training, have shown that when students are presented with these opportunities without barriers, immense positive change is often enacted.

To facilitate these avenues of innovation and entrepreneurship, we hosted a paid changemaking workshop. The results of the workshop showed that when provided the tools and motivation to do so, student civic engagement and empathetic problem solving of community issues increases.

More specifically, during the course of our UIF training, we found that many problems facing students at our home institution, the University of Nebraska at Omaha (UNO), were rooted in the COVID-19 pandemic and its impacts on education. We conducted several student interviews regarding these issues. Through the surveys, students reported feeling isolated from other students and felt unheard by both professors and university administration. Additionally, students did not feel as though they had sufficient financial support to participate in changemaking efforts while supporting their university tuition, and therefore felt that they were blocked from participating in these innovation efforts.

Based on these feelings, and as both a resource for interested students and an experiment to show UNO administration, we developed a 3-day changemaking workshop that aimed to teach students the proponents of leading change, apply design methodologies for developing solutions to change, and compensate students for learning, leading, and improving our university. We wanted to create a workshop that would inspire and empower students to create change for issues they see on UNO’s campus and connect them with faculty to initiate collaboration. We also wanted to pay the students, so that students with financial adversities had the opportunity to participate

We began our planning of the workshop by working with Vice Chancellor Dan Shipp and Assistant Vice Chancellor Kristina Cammarano, and Director of Student Development Harnoor Singh. It took our group about 3 months to locate funding to pay students $9 an hour, create an agenda, design the curriculum, invite students, and execute the overall event.

Participation in our workshop was open to all enrolled UNO undergraduate and graduate students. Our workshop was advertised via social media and via email communication through various university organizations.

Our workshop was held via Zoom over the course of three days. Each day consisted of a two-hour long session split into two hour-long halves. The first hour of the session was an informational section to teach participants the proponents of that day’s activities. Each day also included student speakers who had been involved in student-led change at UNO. The second half of each session was devoted to working in groups to focus on each day’s task.

When developing the workshop, we defined our metrics of success as the number of projects that students developed solutions for, the number of students who joined our new organization, Mavs for Change, after the workshop, and the number of faculty who attended the workshop.

We believe that our workshop was successful based on our defined metrics. Our workshop included five student speakers, six faculty, staff, and administrators, and 27 general participants. We had originally only budgeted for 20 students, but based on the level of interest, we expanded. During the workshop students identified three areas that needed reform: Campus Safety/Security, Accessibility, and Mental Health. Students in our workshop developed five solutions to problems that they have seen at UNO. These included issues in the areas of Accessibility, Mental Health, and Campus Security.

By the conclusion of the workshop, all five groups had proposals for carrying out their work in the future. Since our workshop, students have taken several steps to implement change at UNO. One of the groups focused on accessibility of the UNO website has presented to the Chancellor’s Wellness Committee and is working with administrators to implement their proposed revisions. Another group from this workshop pursued increasing accessibility to CAPS, through working with administrator Cathy Pettid following the workshop.

In total, we had seven participants of our workshop join our organization, Mavericks for Change, which we created at the same time as our workshop. This organization serves to create an environment where students feel comfortable and welcome to bring forward issues they are passionate about and to foster collaboration between a diverse group of students (follow us at @mavsforchange on Facebook and Instagram).

To obtain additional metrics on the impact of our workshop, we created a post-survey gaging student’s experience at the workshop and what they learned. From this survey, we found that students’ interest in changemaking at UNO increased, and students reported wanting to continue work on projects. Furthermore, students were able to retain the method of changemaking used in the workshop evident through their descriptions of what they had learned.

Based on the results that we observed and the response that we received from students, we believe that our workshop was a success. The substantial turnout demonstrated that a large population of students at our university were interested in leading movements and developing new ideas to solve problems. We attribute the sizable attendance, in part, to the funding that we offered to students. Offering payment appeared to make the workshop more accessible to students, and we hope to use this idea to help create new funded positions for students to be involved in solving university problems. Along with this, the transition of some of the participants to Mavericks for Change provided a sign that workshop participants are interested in continuing their work.

For us as fellows, the workshop was an excellent opportunity for us to convey the skills that we learned through UIF training to a broader audience. The presentation and visual materials that we created are things that we plan to use in the future for additional workshops or other teaching moments. Seeing how much of an impact our workshop has had makes us excited to continue our work and to incorporate these new ideas and individuals into Mavericks for Change.

Future Unveiled: University Innovation Fellows Post-NSF Plans

February 16, 2016/0 Comments/in Epicenter /by Laurie Moore

An Open Letter to the University Innovation Fellows Community

We have big news!

As you know, the University Innovation Fellows program was born as a successful program of the Epicenter. This center was created with the support of a 5-year National Science Foundation grant and has served as a lab for learning about how U.S. schools might embed innovation and entrepreneurship into the student experience.

We are thrilled to tell you that when Epicenter’s NSF grant ends on June 30, 2016, the University Innovation Fellows program will leave the lab and continue to empower students to change higher education!

In its very essence, the University Innovation Fellows program will remain unchanged. Today, we are providing you with a breakdown of what our exciting future entails:

What will remain the same?

The program will keep the same name and mission.
We will continue training new student change agents and welcoming students from all disciplines.
We will continue offering online training and in-person meetups to support the development of change agents on your campus. We are accepting applications for fall 2016 with the deadline of May 2, 2016. (Request an application today)

What will change?

The new home of the University Innovation Fellows program will be Stanford University’s Hasso Plattner Institute of Design (d.school). The UIF program will continue under the leadership current directors Humera Fasihuddin and Leticia Britos Cavagnaro and with the support staff you know and love. We’ve always considered the d.school a center of gravity for the Fellows program and we are excited to create even further linkages between d.school initiatives and your change efforts on campus. Next time you’re in the neighborhood, come check out our new space!
Without subsidy from the NSF, we will need to increase the program fee from $2,000 to $4,000 per student. We thought long and hard about this decision. The increase won’t cover our entire budget, but it will go a long way. We know it won’t be easy for some institutions. But, ultimately, we leaned in favor of maintaining the integrity of the program aspects we know to be catalytic in support of Fellows.
Campuses can continue to sponsor a Leadership Circle of up to four students for a single $4,000 fee, with a letter from the president of the university.
For future Silicon Valley Meetups, schools will continue to be responsible for the costs of the students’ travel to California, but this will now include the price of their hotel stay (please note that this change does not apply to the March 2016 Meetup).
We’re going global! We will now be accepting applications for Fall 2016 from countries around the world (we have already received requests for applications).
We will also offer workshops and resources for those who sponsor Fellows (faculty, staff and administrators). These offerings will include a 4-day workshop on design thinking pedagogy and a program for sponsors of Fellows to learn best practices in achieving change through their student leaders. We hope that revenue generated from these offerings will contribute to supporting the program.
We are seeking new funding sources and collaborators to grow the program.

How can you help us continue to strengthen our future?

Like any good social venture, we would love to break even by generating revenue through program offerings our customers love. However, these revenue streams may take time to ramp up. Until that time, we need to secure philanthropic funding with donors and foundations. We may even launch a crowdfunding campaign! To support these fundraising campaigns, we are creating a video featuring the Fellows story of impact on campuses across the nation. This video will collect all of the amazing stories, voices and faces to show the power of our movement as we build this new future for the program. Want to submit a 15 second video of your impact? Email Stacey: stacey@universityinnovation.org.

In the meantime, your work to create lasting institutional change is making a difference. This spring, we will publish articles, papers and books documenting Fellows’ impact, along with hard evidence from evaluators and researchers. We hope this will help expand the movement to new heights. We are grateful for all your hard work. Together we are ensuring a brighter future for young people in our nation.

For continued information and updates, follow the University Innovation Fellows program on social media:

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/universityinnovationfellows/
Twitter: @uifellows, #uifellows
Instagram: @uifellows, #uifellows

To learn more about the future of Epicenter’s other initiatives, please read the letter from the PI’s to the Epicenter community.

We are excited about what the future holds!

Sincerely,

The University Innovation Fellows Team
Humera, Leticia, Katie, Laurie and Stacey

2015 Year in Review: What Innovation & Entrepreneurship Education Looks Like

December 31, 2015/0 Comments/in Epicenter, University Innovation Fellows /by Laurie Moore

“Since our Nation’s founding, our progress has been fueled by an inherent sense of purpose and ingenuity in our people. Americans have more opportunities now than ever before to carry forward this legacy — to create something, to raise capital in creative ways, and to pursue aspirations.” – President Obama, Presidential Proclamation of National Entrepreneurship Month (November 2015)

2015 was a year of opportunity for University Innovation Fellows to be co-designers of and contribute value in higher education. Today, innovation and entrepreneurship (I&E) education can take a wide range of forms at our colleges and universities in the U.S. In addition to starting ventures, I&E education can also expose students to the mindsets and skillsets that make innovators and entrepreneurs successful, whether they start their own companies or join industry, government or the nonprofit sector. Faculty and students are seeing the benefit of exposure to an entrepreneurial mindset in all majors and career paths, and there isn’t one perfect model or collection of activities that can be used to teach students.

Across the country, students are taking the lead to understand their school’s needs and develop opportunities for their peers to learn an entrepreneurial mindset and skillset. The University Innovation Fellows are leading this charge. This national student program — run by the NSF-funded National Center for Engineering Pathways to Innovation (Epicenter), which is directed by Stanford University and VentureWell — empowers students to be change agents in higher education. Fellows collaborate with one another and with faculty and administrators at their schools to develop activities that teach entrepreneurship, innovation, design thinking and creativity including courses, spaces, workshops, events and organizations.

Below are just a few ways that Fellows are creating new opportunities for their peers to pursue their aspirations:

Startup weekends

In November 2015, a Fellow at the University of New Haven hosted 3-Day Startup, a 72-hour learning-by-doing campus workshop. This program is used by colleges across the globe to teach entrepreneurial skills to university students in an extreme, hands-on and experiential environment.
https://www.facebook.com/Newhaven3DS/
William Jewell College, Rockhurst University and the University of Missouri – Kansas City collaborated to host #OneDayKC in April 2015. This event gave six teams of undergraduate and graduate students 12 hours to create and pitch a lean startup company that leverages Kansas City’s infrastructure and the Internet of Things to solve community challenges.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L9tU0YMbOt8

Hackathons

Fellows at the University of the Virgin Islands hosted a hackathon in November with 28 students from different majors who collaborated on ideas to impact the local community. The winning team designed the community service app “Win-Win.” This app’s goal is to raise awareness and participation in community service across the territory. App users will earn points for performing community service that could then be redeemed at local merchants for discounts and other specials.
https://www.facebook.com/uvidea/

K-12 engagement

In November, faculty and students at the University of Puerto Rico Mayaguez Campus hosted an entrepreneurship competition for 2,500 high school and middle school students. Fellows served as judges, exhibitors and workshop assistants; faculty in Epicenter’s Pathways to Innovation Program organized the event; and 100 university students assisted with activities.
http://www.caribbeanbusinesspr.com/news/echar-pa-lante-alliance-to-hold-student-expo-117905.html

Co-working spaces

A Fellow and several students from Virginia Commonwealth University created Indie Lab, a co-working community laboratory designed to provide access to equipment in a creative space in order to accomplish scientific projects. The space provides a membership program to supply aspiring scientists, artists and entrepreneurs with the tools necessary to perform safe and reliable experiments outside of higher education labs.
http://rva.indielab.co/
This Fall, Fellows at Kent State University created and launched The Fridge, an open co-working space in the library for students from all majors to work on collaborative projects. Fellows hosted a University Innovation Fellows Regional Meetup in the space in mid-November, where participants used the design thinking methodology to explore ideas around advising and mentorship.
http://www.fridge.space

Freshmen orientation

Michigan Technological University held “Chill Out with #uifresh” in August with 1,300 incoming students from all majors. The activity, which focused on ways to cope with winter weather, introduced students to the school’s innovation and entrepreneurship ecosystem and opportunities to participate in real world problem solving activities on campus.
http://universityinnovationfellows.org/20-colleges-and-universities-launch-innovative-orientation-activities-to-retain-stem-students/

Pop-up classes

At James Madison University, the JMU X-Labs offer free, non-credit workshops to help faculty, students and community members learn new skills. Faculty and students also use JMU X-Labs as maker spaces and facilities to teach courses, with a future goal of offering 24-hour access to the campus community. In November, Fellows and faculty also hosted a University Innovation Fellows Regional Meetup in the X-Labs space, where attendees participated in design challenges and explored projects Fellows are implementing across the country.
http://jmuxlabs.org/
A Fellow at Utah Valley University created a mobile cart with prototyping materials that can travel to multiple classrooms to teach design thinking. This pop-up model allows faculty to help students to engage with the methodology without having to create new curriculum, with the future goal of creating a dedicated makerspace on campus for this type of engagement.

Incubators

At Southern Illinois University Carbondale, Fellows enhance the entrepreneurial playing field for the region’s student entrepreneurs and innovators through Saluki Ventures. This incubator runs the Saluki Innovation Series, which offers a pitch competition, hackathon, marketing workshop and other events.
http://researchpark.siu.edu/saluki-ventures/index.html

Student organizations

North Dakota State University’s Fellows created the Hammock Initiative to encourage students to discuss ideas in a relaxed setting. As part of the #uifresh initiative, in August, they hosted the activity “I3: Ignite Innovative Ideas,” where students relaxed on hammocks and discussed innovative and entrepreneurial activities on campus and in the community.
http://vimeo.com/130341536
Fellows at La Salle University created a 3D printing club to pique interest in entrepreneurship among students and establish a culture of making. The space features a white board where students can share new ideas and connect with others. In the future, the Fellows plan to collaborate with faculty on robotics and design thinking activities in the space.

Program Updates for 2015

Welcomed 274 of Fellows: 123 in Spring 2015 and 151 in Fall 2015.
Held largest (to-date) Annual Meetup, which took place at Google and Stanford’s d.school in February 2015 with 157 Fellows and 12 faculty sponsors. Participants learned design thinking and lean startup strategies and worked on collaborative projects.
Created two national initiatives:
- #uifresh: launched in March with 10 campuses, #uifresh introduces incoming STEM students to innovation, entrepreneurship, design thinking and creativity. The number of campuses doubled to 20 in August by partnering with Epicenter’s Pathways to Innovation program.
- Higher education commitment in honor of the first-ever White House Demo Day: 30 institutions committed to actions that will expand innovation and entrepreneurship education offerings in order to enhance the economic potential of colleges and universities and better prepare students to create products that benefit humankind.
Attended multiple conferences to share the impact of Fellows, including the American Society for Engineering Education (ASEE) for the first time. Members of Epicenter’s Research Team received two paper awards at the ASEE Annual Conference in Seattle, Wa.
Co-hosted two regional meetups at Kent State University (read one student’s perspective here) and James Madison University.

This is a high-level synopsis of 2015 and we’re excitedly looking toward the future and what 2016 will bring. Happy New Year!

Imagine, Create & Ignite: Building a Path to a Meaningful Future

November 18, 2015/0 Comments/in Epicenter, Ohio Northern University, STVP Future Fest, Texas Tech, University Innovation Fellows /by Laurie Moore

STVP Future Fest 2015, Elon Musk. Photo by Matt Beardsley.

by Francis Atore

As I sat in the Bing Concert Hall at Stanford University, I was in awe of the environment. The architecture of the hall plus the opportunity of being in the presence of influential people in attendance such as Bernie Roth and Heidi Roizen made me feel euphoric. As the talk began, Elon Musk, (founder of Tesla & SpaceX) and Steve Jurvetson (partner at Draper Fisher Jurvetson) walked out on stage. Steve began to ask Elon a series of questions about the future of technology and even Mars! I was blown away at the moonshot thinking that the people around me had. They spoke freely about audacious goals and progress for mankind with moxie and hope. They even discussed how artificial intelligence (AI) and genetics are projected to be the next major revolutionary fields. Talking cars, watches and phones were regarded as impossible 20 years ago and are now reality. Holograms were a fairytale, but with the emergence of developer environments such as leap motion, they are now reality (I guess fairytales come true)! An episode of MTV cribs on Mars now seems far fetched, but how about we fast forward to 2035. Will the first episode feature a University Innovation Fellow?

The event was an incredible experience and encouragement to what I hope to achieve as a person who happens to be studying engineering. Hearing Elon Musk speak about the future and the opportunity to go after goals that are often difficult for most people to picture exemplifies the seed that was planted in me through the University Innovation Fellows program. We always need to think about how people imagined our present world in the past, then think about the present, then think about how we view the future, and then time travel to the future by making it happen. We don’t necessarily have to focus on one thing our whole lives, and don’t have to specialize in what we went to college for or what we have always done. It’s ok to be regarded as crazy–at least we know it. The crazy ideas tend to have the best chance of changing the world, but we always need a community of realistic collaborators and friends to keep us streamlined.

Alexandra Seda (left) & Francis Atore (right) with their DIY Tesla waiting to enter STVP’s Future Fest with guest Elon Musk.

I entered the program as a creative hopeful with the outlook that I could accomplish little. However, through the program I’ve grown to outgrow the limited mentality I once had–the mindset that dreams could not come true if I did not have sufficient resources on hand. Now, after becoming a Fellow and having the opportunity to travel to California twice, gaining and sharing as much knowledge accumulated back to my campus; I know this is only the beginning.

Elon mentioned how he only focuses on solving problems that will have a significant impact on others. He is able to solve these problems with an extraordinary team of doers who have the capacity to imagine and believe. As a Fellow, I hope that I can ignite the freedom of imagination and belief in solving mankind’s challenges through empowering the students on my campus. As we analyze the world we live in and imagine the future, we need to identify the most interesting problems to solve that will develop a meaningful purpose in others. Secondly, prioritize the sequence in which we tackle problems based on the amount of resources that are readily available for each problem. Third, the notion that good people finish last is not true and does not have to be the case. We can always help others shine and succeed and still be successful.

STVP Future Fest 2015 with guest Elon Musk at Stanford University. Photo by Matt Beardsley.

UIF’s mantra is, “We believe students can change the world!” As a Fellow, I firmly believe and stand by this . How do Fellows live out this mantra? We live it by creating/strengthening innovation spaces, entrepreneurship events, design thinking workshops, multi-school collaborations, and national partnerships in the hopes that these offerings will raise up curiously empowered problem solvers and selfless entrepreneurs all across America and the world. “We believe students can change the world.” Do you believe?

P.S. This has nothing to do with the talk, but you need to make sure that you have the RIGHT type of post its. That is, a number of 3 X 3 post it brands and not yellow (too generic), multi colored set. For more technical details consult Leticia, the POST IT guru.

Francis Atore, Texas Tech

Francis Atore, Texas Tech University

Francis is an honors college student studying
Chemical Engineering at Texas Tech. He is
engaging students in design thinking and
creativity through Do. Think. Make. events.

Alexandra Seda, Ohio Northern University

Alexandra is studying Electrical Engineering
at Ohio Northern University. She is working to
redesign spaces across campus to enhance
creative thinking in students.

150 Students Named University Innovation Fellows by NSF-Funded Epicenter

October 26, 2015/0 Comments/in Epicenter, University Innovation Fellow /by Laurie Moore

PRESS RELEASE

(October 26, 2015) – 150 students from 52 higher education institutions have been named University Innovation Fellows by the National Center for Engineering Pathways to Innovation (Epicenter).

The University Innovation Fellows program empowers students to become agents of change at their schools. Fellows work to ensure that their peers gain the knowledge, skills and attitudes required to compete in the economy of the future and make a positive impact on the world.

To accomplish this, the Fellows advocate for lasting institutional change and create opportunities for students to engage with innovation, entrepreneurship, design thinking and creativity at their schools. Fellows design innovation spaces, start entrepreneurship organizations, host experiential learning events and work with faculty to develop new courses. Fellows who joined the program in the 2014-15 academic year held 112 events and established 35 spaces at their schools.

The program is run by Epicenter, which is funded by the National Science Foundation and directed by Stanford University and VentureWell.

“We’ve trained over 450 students at 130 institutions in the last four years,” said Humera Fasihuddin, co-leader of the University Innovation Fellows program. “Faculty and administrators are funding a consistent supply of students to go through the program because they can count on Fellows to make a big impact. Fellows understand the big picture and use their resourcefulness, creativity and national network to make measurable gains on campus, both in the number of resources and the students served by the innovation and entrepreneurship ecosystem.”

“It’s been so inspiring to see these changes at such a large scale,” said Leticia Britos Cavagnaro, co-leader of the University Innovation Fellows program. “The Fellows themselves are learning to be leaders and creative problems solvers, and they’re bringing other students along with them on this journey to make a positive difference at their schools and in their communities.”

Individual Fellows as well as institutional teams of Fellows are sponsored by faculty and administrators and selected through an application process twice annually. Following acceptance into the program, schools fund the students to go through six weeks of online training and travel to the University Innovation Fellows Annual Meetup in Silicon Valley. Throughout the year, they take part in events and conferences across the country and have opportunities to learn from one another, Epicenter mentors, and leaders in academia and industry.

The new Fellows join the program from the following schools:

Bucknell University
California State University, Northridge
Clemson University
Dalhousie University
Florida Institute of Technology
Furman University
George Fox University
George Mason University
Georgia Institute of Technology
Grand Valley State University
James Madison University
Kent State University
Michigan Technological University
Missouri University of Science and Technology
Morgan State University
New Mexico State University
North Carolina A&T State University
North Dakota State University
Northwestern University
Oklahoma State University
Prairie View A&M University
Purdue University
Rockhurst University
Skidmore College
Southern Illinois University Carbondale
Temple University
Texas A&M University
University of Alabama at Birmingham
University of Colorado at Colorado Springs
University of Connecticut
University of Delaware
University of Florida
University of Georgia
University of Louisville
University of Maryland, College Park
University of Massachusetts Lowell
University of Michigan, Ann Arbor
University of Minnesota
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
University of North Dakota
University of Notre Dame
University of Portland
University of Puerto Rico at Mayagüez
University of the Virgin Islands
University of Virginia
University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee
Wake Forest University
Washington State University
Western Michigan University
Wichita State University
William Jewell College
Xavier University of Louisiana

This year, the University Innovation Fellows launched a national STEM initiative called #uifresh (University Innovation Freshmen). Participating institutions are exposing incoming first-year students to innovation, entrepreneurship, design thinking and creativity in order to attract and retain more students in STEM disciplines. The initiative was launched in March 2015, during the White House Science Fair, and 20 schools held activities for new students during orientation in August and September. Read more about the schools and their activities at http://bit.ly/uifresh-news.

This November, students will have the opportunity to participate in two University Innovation Fellows Regional Meetups at Kent State University and James Madison University. These events are designed by Fellows at a host school and attract Fellows from nearby states as well as other local students. The events feature local thought-leaders and showcase the school’s efforts to promote innovation, entrepreneurship, design thinking and creativity.

Learn more about the University Innovation Fellows at http://universityinnovationfellows.org/.

About Epicenter:
The National Center for Engineering Pathways to Innovation (Epicenter) is funded by the National Science Foundation and directed by Stanford University and VentureWell. Epicenter’s mission is to empower U.S. undergraduate engineering students to bring their ideas to life for the benefit of our economy and society. To do this, Epicenter helps students combine their technical skills, their ability to develop innovative technologies that solve important problems, and an entrepreneurial mindset and skillset. Epicenter’s three core initiatives are the University Innovation Fellows program for undergraduate engineering students and their peers; the Pathways to Innovation Program for institutional teams of faculty and university leaders; and a research program that informs activities and contributes to national knowledge on entrepreneurship and engineering education. Learn more and get involved at epicenter.stanford.edu.

About Stanford University:
At Stanford University, the Epicenter collaboration is managed by the Stanford Technology Ventures Program (STVP), the entrepreneurship center in Stanford’s School of Engineering. STVP delivers courses and extracurricular programs to Stanford students, creates scholarly research on high-impact technology ventures, and produces a large and growing collection of online content and experiences for people around the world. Visit us online at stvp.stanford.edu.

About VentureWell:
VentureWell was founded in 1995 as the National Collegiate Inventors and Innovators Alliance (NCIIA) and rebranded in 2014 to underscore its impact as an education network that cultivates revolutionary ideas and promising inventions. A not-for-profit organization reaching more than 200 universities, VentureWell is a leader in funding, training, coaching and early investment that brings student innovations to market. Inventions created by VentureWell grantees are reaching millions of people in more than 50 countries and helping to solve some of our greatest 21st century challenges. Visit www.venturewell.org to learn how we inspire students, faculty and investors to transform game-changing ideas into solutions for people and the planet.

Media contact:
Laurie Moore
Communications Manager, Epicenter
(650) 561-6113
llhmoore@stanford.edu

What Role Can Students Play in Attracting & Retaining their STEM Peers?

April 15, 2015/0 Comments/in Epicenter, Partners, University Innovation Fellows /by Laurie Moore

#BigBeacon Twitter Chat – April 22, 2015

Join the conversation at 8 p.m. EST.
Tweeting as @epicenterusa, using the #BigBeacon.

Preparing college graduates for careers in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) is a national education priority in the United States. According to a report published by the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology, fewer than 40 percent of students who enter college intending to major in a STEM field actually complete a STEM degree. Many organizations have been working to address this issue on the national level, and higher education administrators and faculty are working on ways to attract and retain more STEM students on an institutional level.

This article was originally posted on bigbeacon.org. To read the full post, please follow this link.

Empowering The Next Silicon Valley

March 16, 2015/0 Comments/in Epicenter, Ohio State University, University Innovation Fellow /by peeyushshrivastava19

For many of the fellows, the captain announcing the initial descent into San Francisco/San Jose was enough to get our hearts racing. A few weeks back, we had the opportunity to meet our peer Fellows from all around the country, and visit innovative places such as Google, Stanford d. School, and in our spare time, the rest of what Silicon Valley has to offer.

We were all mesmerized by the resources, the opportunities and the networks that were established around the area. But near the end of my trip, I had the chance to head over to East Palo Alto, with poverty and homelessness in unbelievably high density. Even with the classic Silicon Valley iconic dot com boom, there are areas like East Palo Alto which were bypassed. On the flight back home, I had time to consider what this mean to me as a young innovator.

I came to the conclusion that although Silicon Valley is inspiring in and of itself, and many of my peer Fellows are excited to perhaps one day be a part of it, it is also of the utmost importance to empower our youthful innovators and University Innovation Fellows to create the next Silicon Valley, and deliver unprecedented growth in Innovation and Entrepreneurship (I&E) in their own hometowns. This begs the question: What made the tech boom possible in Silicon Valley, and what would it take to mirror the environment in a new burgeoning city?

Innovators, often unintentionally, bullishly attempt to characterize solutions without first understanding the problem. For clarity, think of the jigsaw puzzles you completed as a child. There is a reference picture on the box, providing a sense of an end vision and inspiration, but most importantly, providing a landscape to facilitate the process. Silicon Valley is that picture on the box; when shaping our respective I&E Ecosystem Landscape Canvases, it is common for us to think we are on our own, without any facilitation or guiding end vision. This could not be further from the truth.

The weekend in Silicon Valley with Fellows was a time for collaboration, design thinking and the discussion of a variety of different exciting platforms and initiatives for empowering our movement for growth. But let it be known that there is a reference picture on the figurative box of our movement. It is tech hubs like Silicon Valley, that give us a sense of an end vision – a vision for where the next innovation boom will occur, whether it be in clean energy, biotech or even liberal arts education on college campuses. But just as it is in East Palo Alto, the picture is blurred. There are areas that innovation seemed to bypass, and the people and economy suffer tremendously. It is the burden of us Fellows to begin putting together the puzzle, while also shedding light on the blurred area of the picture.

It is time for the next Silicon Valley to be born; for a new picture to emerge, and for the picture to be clearer than ever before. The next gold standard could be in Ohio, South Carolina, or Idaho. And it would be safe to bet that a University Innovation Fellow would be behind that project.

Consider this a call. A call for action. A call for the next Silicon Valley. A better Silicon Valley, and a better world for it.

-Peeyush Shrivastava, University Innovation Fellow ’15

Peeyush Shrivastava is a Biomedical Science major (Economics Minor) at The Ohio State University, and a passionate innovator and entrepreneur working on developing and commercializing a pipeline of diagnostic solutions. An avid researcher and enthusiast of science and youthful innovation, Peeyush hopes to bring a new era of student bioscience innovation with his role as a Fellow at Ohio State. See his full profile here.

Change Agents Activated

March 9, 2015/1 Comment/in Epicenter, Event, University Innovation Fellow /by Laurie Moore

Students take the lead in the evolution of higher education at the University Innovation Fellows 2015 Annual Meetup. Originally posted via Epicenter.

by Laurie Moore

At 8:00 pm on Saturday, February 21, the second day of the University Innovation Fellows 2015 Annual Meetup was drawing to a close. Nearly 160 Fellows from across the U.S. had just participated in a 12-hour day of activities at Stanford University, including a one-hour movement workshop, a self-guided tour of campus to discover innovation spaces, and a four-hour, five-session circuit of experiential activities.

They should have been tired.

Instead, they sang karaoke together. They danced. They played basketball outside in the warm (to the East Coasters) evening air. They made s’mores around a fire pit and told their favorite stories from the day. They took selfies and gathered in small groups to learn more about one another and their schools. When the buses came at 9:30 pm to take the students back to their hotels, they demanded one final karaoke song, and then another.

It was hard to believe that these University Innovation Fellows met for the first time as a community only 48 hours earlier.

The University Innovation Fellows program, run by Epicenter, offers training and support for students to become change agents at their schools. Through the training and ongoing support, Fellows learn to navigate their campus landscapes and create offerings that hone peers’ entrepreneurial mindsets and instill creative confidence.

Fellows on the last day of the Annual Meetup at Stanford’s d.school.

While many Fellows had met online during their intense 6-week video-conference-based training, the Annual Meetup allowed them to connect in person for the first time. Together, they had the opportunity to share experiences and insights from their schools, collaborate on new strategies for change in education, understand their role in this national movement, and learn from leaders in higher education and industry.

The Fellows at the 2015 Meetup were from two cohorts trained in Fall 2014 and Spring 2015. Also in attendance were 12 of the Fellows’ faculty sponsors, who who were invited to attend and participate alongside students as partners in achieving institutional change.

The Meetup was organized by the University Innovation Fellows program staff at Epicenter: Leticia Britos Cavagnaro, Humera Fasihuddin, Katie Dzugan and Laurie Moore. Eight Fellows assisted with the design and facilitation of the event and hosted several sessions: Atin Mittra, Meenu Singh and Valerie Sherry from the University of Maryland, College Park; Greg Wilson from the University of Georgia; Ryan Phillips from the University of Oklahoma; Bre Przestrzelski from Clemson University; Ben Riddle from Furman University; and new Fellow Bradley Dice from William Jewell College.

Rhythm of a Movement

The event spanned three days. The first day at Google was hosted by Frederik Pferdt, head of Innovation and Creativity Programs at Google. Activities included an inside look into Google X with Amanda Kelly, a design challenge in teams, a panel discussion with representatives from People Development at Google, a spaces tour, and a talk on Google for Entrepreneurs with Daniel Navarro.

The second and third days of the Meetup took place at Stanford’s Hasso Plattner Institute of Design (d.school). Sessions on Saturday included a leadership through movement session with Stanford Dance and Performance Arts instructor Aleta Hayes, an exploration of Stanford innovation spaces, a talk with Olga Dotter from Citrix on the intersection of lean startup and design thinking, a circuit of five experiential activities, and a workshop to help students create and facilitate similar activities at their schools.

Sunday activities included a panel with educators and students on new models of education, examples of campus initiatives from current Fellows, and a workshop on how students can accelerate change in higher education. Several special guests stopped by the meetup, including Stanford alumnus and violinist Kai Kight and author and entrepreneur Guy Kawasaki.

Surprise guest: Kai Kight

At the end of the event, Fellows shared their insights from the event in the form of sticky note “bumper stickers” which they placed on a life-size, hand-painted University Innovation Fellows Volkswagen van. Examples included “Never give up,” “Think, Do, Fail, Learn,” “Innovation or Bust,” and “Be the change.”

After the three-day event ended, Fellows returned to their campuses. Their charge: to be the change they want to see in higher education.

Fellows Bus after creating bumper stickers.

More 2015 Annual Meetup materials and articles:

Talking With America’s Future: Removing Barriers, by Shawn Drury http://bluenationreview.com/talking-americas-future-removing-barriers/

Event photo gallery: https://www.flickr.com/photos/epicenterusa/sets/72157650907065066/

Meet the changemakers: map of student attendees at the University Innovation Fellows Annual Meetup 2015: http://prezi.com/ahoz-sfvstdd/?utm_campaign=share&utm_medium=copy&rc=ex0share

123 U.S. Students Named University Innovation Fellows by NSF-Funded Epicenter

February 25, 2015/1 Comment/in Epicenter, National Science Foundation, Stanford University, University Innovation Fellow, VentureWell /by Laurie Moore

For Immediate Release
February 24, 2015

Media contact:
Laurie Moore
Communications Manager, Epicenter
(650) 561-6113
llhmoore@stanford.edu

123 U.S. Students Named University Innovation Fellows by NSF-Funded Epicenter

(February 24, 2015) — 123 students from 51 U.S. higher education institutions have been named University Innovation Fellows by the National Center for Engineering Pathways to Innovation (Epicenter).

The University Innovation Fellows program empowers students to become agents of change at their schools. The Fellows are a national community of students in engineering and related fields who work to ensure that their peers gain the knowledge, skills and attitudes required to compete in the economy of the future. To accomplish this, the Fellows advocate for lasting institutional change and create opportunities for students to engage with entrepreneurship, innovation, creativity, design thinking and venture creation at their schools.

This new cohort of Fellows brings the total number to 291 Fellows from 114 schools. The program is run by Epicenter, which is funded by the National Science Foundation and directed by Stanford University and VentureWell (formerly NCIIA).

“In today’s competitive economy, it is critical for all students to learn an entrepreneurial mindset, which helps them learn to be resilient, creative and empathetic,” said Humera Fasihuddin, co-leader of the University Innovation Fellows program. “Students need to leave school better prepared to tackle our world’s big problems and create new and fulfilling jobs for themselves and others.”

“Our program provides a platform for Fellows to learn to be strategic thinkers, examine the landscape of learning opportunities at their schools, and formulate action plans to implement their ideas,” said Leticia Britos Cavagnaro, co-leader of the Fellows program and Deputy Director of Epicenter. “Fellows develop a community and share strategies about what’s working at their schools. Ultimately, these students, with their drive and motivation, are leading accelerated change in higher education.”

Individual Fellows as well as teams of Fellows are sponsored by faculty and administrators at their schools and selected through an application process twice annually. Following acceptance into the program, schools fund the students to go through six weeks of online training and travel to the University Innovation Fellows Annual Meetup in Silicon Valley. Throughout the year, they take part in events and conferences across the country and have opportunities to learn from one another, Epicenter mentors, and leaders in academia and industry.

Fellows have created design and maker spaces, founded entrepreneurship clubs and organizations, worked with faculty to design new courses, and hosted events and workshops. In the last academic year alone, Fellows created 553 activities, 22 new spaces and 65 innovation and entrepreneurship resources at their schools.

“Over the course of the program, we’ve seen Fellows have a powerful impact on student engagement and campus culture at a national scale,” Fasihuddin said. “Word of their success has attracted more than 50 institutions for this new cohort. We’re thrilled to see the impact of the new Fellows in the year ahead.”

The new Fellows gathered in Silicon Valley on February 20-22, 2015, for their annual meeting, where they took part in immersive experiences at Google and Stanford University. At the event, Fellows participated in experiential workshops and exercises focused on topics including movement building, student innovation spaces, design of learning experiences, and new models of change in higher education. They engaged with leaders in academia and industry from Google, Google for Entrepreneurs, Stanford University, and Citrix, among others. Additional information and photos from the event are available upon request.

Learn more about the University Innovation Fellows at http://epicenter.stanford.edu/university-innovation-fellows.

About Epicenter:
The National Center for Engineering Pathways to Innovation (Epicenter) is funded by the National Science Foundation and directed by Stanford University and VentureWell (formerly NCIIA). Epicenter’s mission is to empower U.S. undergraduate engineering students to bring their ideas to life for the benefit of our economy and society. To do this, Epicenter helps students combine their technical skills, their ability to develop innovative technologies that solve important problems, and an entrepreneurial mindset and skillset. Epicenter’s three core initiatives are the University Innovation Fellows program for undergraduate engineering students and their peers; the Pathways to Innovation Program for institutional teams of faculty and university leaders; and a research program that informs activities and contributes to national knowledge on entrepreneurship and engineering education. Learn more and get involved at epicenter.stanford.edu.

About Stanford University:
At Stanford University, the Epicenter collaboration is managed by the Stanford Technology Ventures Program (STVP), the entrepreneurship center in Stanford’s School of Engineering. STVP delivers courses and extracurricular programs to Stanford students, creates scholarly research on high-impact technology ventures, and produces a large and growing collection of online content and experiences for people around the world. Visit us online at stvp.stanford.edu.

About VentureWell:
VentureWell was founded in 1995 as the National Collegiate Inventors and Innovators Alliance (NCIIA) and rebranded in 2014 to underscore its impact as an education network that cultivates revolutionary ideas and promising inventions. A not-for-profit organization reaching more than 200 universities, VentureWell is the leader in funding, training, coaching and early investment that brings student innovations to market. Inventions created by VentureWell grantees are reaching millions of people in more than 50 countries and helping to solve some of our greatest 21st century challenges. Visit www.venturewell.org to learn how we inspire students, faculty and investors to transform game-changing ideas into solutions for people and the planet.

A Trip to Georgia Tech

February 5, 2015/1 Comment/in Epicenter, University Innovation Fellow /by Laurie Moore

Amin Mojtahedi, UW Milwaukee

This article was written by Amin Mojtahedi, a University Innovation Fellow Candidate at the University of Wisconsin at Milwaukee. Amin is a Ph.D. candidate in the School of Architecture and was visiting the Georgia Tech campus for one week at the end of January. See his full bio here.

As part of an architectural study for Georgia Tech (GT), I had the chance to spend the entire last week on the GT campus exploring places related to the landscape of innovation and entrepreneurship

Georgia Tech Invention Studio

(I&E). One of my most memorable visits was to the Invention Studio at the Manufacturing Related Disciplines Complex where Alexis, a PhD candidate in Electrical Engineering, gave me a comprehensive tour of the facility. The Invention Studio was a student-run maker space where the opportunity for students to design, prototype and share was provided through workshops, experienced student “masters” in about 13 areas, and access to a wide range of materials and impressive cutting edge machinery including computer controlled machines (e.g., 3D printers, 3D scanners, laser engraving and cutting machines, waterjet, etc.), powered manual machines (e.g., bandsaw, injection molding, drill press, etc.) electronics equipment, and hand tools. In the fifth year of its operation, the Invention Studio has about 170 members and is opening branches in other schools on campus. Despite the rapid growth, members still bond over video games and move nights in the comfy lounge equipped with a large screen right across the Studio.

Innovation & Design Collaborative, Georgia Tech

Perhaps the most exciting part of the trip was meeting the GT three UIFs: Megna, a 5th year Biomedical Engineer; Alex, a 3rd year Mechanical Engineer; and Rachel, a 5th year Biomedical Engineer. We all first met at the Starbucks in the architecturally impressive Clough Learning Commons. Later, Megna and Alex kindly gave me a complete tour of the Innovation & Design Collaborative in the GT library. IDC, or Design Block as Megna liked to call it, was an intelligently designed 4,000 sqf space with a variety of furniture from playful foam cubes to customized tall studio-like desks for group work. A Unistrut ceiling and racks provide drop-down access to electrical utility for users to be able to plug in while being in their desired spot and white boards were everywhere. With Wayne Li’s help, the space and program were designed after Stanford’s d.school. I concluded the tour by participating in Wayne’s class on Contextual Awareness – as one of the five tenets the 21st century creative thinker can use to disrupt markets and drive innovation. IDC’s space is open to GT students 24/7 and is currently holding workshops while providing resources for learning Design Behavior.

Sponsors Crash Fellows Meetup: A Faculty Glimpse into the Student Movement

December 15, 2014/0 Comments/in Epicenter, University Innovation Fellow /by Laurie Moore

The following post is a reflection of two faculty sponsors: Landon Young of William Jewell College (Missouri) and John Santa Lucia of Wayne State University (Michigan). Both faculty sponsors had the pleasure of joining Fellows at two separate meetups; the first was the Southeastern Regional Meetup in Greenville, South Carolina, from October 3 – 4, 2014 and the second was the Mid-Atlantic Regional Meetup in College Park, Maryland, and Washington D.C. from November 1 – 2, 2014. Each meetup had a unique theme dedicated to the strengths of the universities being represented and the resources within local community relationships.

Southeastern Regional Meetup

John Santa Lucia (right), Fellows Faculty Sponsor; Professor at Wayne State University and Owner, DNA Software, Inc.; Southeastern Regional Meetup

It takes a special person to be an entrepreneur. It takes courage, vision, innovation, optimism, energy, perseverance, team building, leadership, and technical skill. Few people have the winning combination of skills needed for success. However, three students from Wayne State University — Nikolas Upton, Siwatu Sanders, and Pradeep Bhat — have these skills in spades. All three of them successfully completed the training for the University Innovation Fellows (UIF) program. Nationwide, only 168 students have completed the program to date.

As a faculty sponsor, it is a privilege to mentor Nik, Siwatu and Pradeep. I have been working with them to refine their business ideas and their ideas for spreading entrepreneurship at Wayne State through business short courses and the creation of a “maker space” for 3D printing, prototyping and fabrication. The capstone event for the UIF training was a regional meeting October 3-4 in Greenville, SC. This was attended by 68 students from throughout the U.S. and our hosts from Clemson and Furman University were wonderful. I was thrilled to be able to participate in this event.

John Santa Lucia, Southeastern Regional Meetup

John Santa Lucia during dancing (!!!) activity; Faculty Sponsor, Wayne State University

We started out at 9:00 PM with an overnight road trip from Detroit to South Carolina. The road trip itself was a great opportunity to have extended conversations with the students. Their energy and optimism is infectious. At the UIF meeting we were treated to some wonderful talks from local entrepreneurs and various instructional games from the Design Thinking Group. The students participated in several workshops that involved brainstorming business ideas in small groups, making elevator pitches, writing business plans, dancing (!!!), and performing real marketing research by performing polls of people on Main Street. As a faculty sponsor, I had great fun mostly observing the incredible creativity of the students. It was also fun to jump in and offer some guidance and to ask some probative questions.

I love the social idealism of this generation. Most of their business ideas involve socially conscious issues such as care of the elderly, how to deal with student loan debt, green technologies for energy and waste disposal, engineering prosthetic devices for handicapped people, and engineering clean water for poor countries. One of the unique aspects of the regional meeting was that the structure of the meeting was engaging, instructional and FUN! Quite different than the usual classroom didactic. I think that more faculty sponsors should be encouraged to go to these meetings so that they can import some of the entrepreneurial ideas into their curricula. Entrepreneurs like Nik, Siwatu, and Pradeep give me optimism for the future of our country.

John SantaLucia
Professor and UIF faculty sponsor, Wayne State University

Mid-Atlantic Regional Meetup

I am thrilled that I chose to attend the University Innovation Fellows (UIF) Mid-Atlantic Meetup at the University of Maryland with my students! It was a provocative weekend that helped me to better understand the goals and activities of Epicenter and the UIF program. I was able to experience the activities with students first-hand, and this shared experience reinforced the bond with students and gave us a shared vocabulary, vision and purpose.

The hands-on activities gave the students experience in materializing their ideas into tangible products and designs, and we all had a blast laughing at ourselves as we fashioned virtual reality wearables out of fuzzy pipe cleaners!

Landon Young (left), Faculty Sponsor, William Jewell College

Landon Young (left) during the creativity circuit; Faculty Sponsor, William Jewell College

The meetup took several serious turns as well. As a group, we discussed national trends and specific ideas for William Jewell College, including an outline that we developed for changes in the student curriculum. The most meaningful take-away for the students was being guided into a mindset of empathy, which gave them insight into other points of view, including the perspective of a customer, a friend, and an administrator on campus.

As a faculty member and advisor, I was able to meet the staff and organizers from Epicenter. Over the course of the two-day gathering, I saw the passion and knowledge that they brought to the table and learned the specific methodologies that they use. This group of driven and focused individuals guided the students with care and gave specific as-needed instruction to each Fellow. The group accomplished so much together, and I left inspired by the relationships forged and the innovative dialogue we shared. I cannot wait for the next meetup when I can join students and advisors in shaping the next phase of the UIF program.

Landon Young
Professor and UIF faculty sponsor, William Jewell College

Fellows Mid-Atlantic Regional Meetup: University of Maryland and Washington D.C.

October 29, 2014/0 Comments/in Epicenter, Regional Meetup, University Innovation Fellow, University of Maryland College Park /by Laurie Moore

Originally published by Epicenter

PRESS RELEASE: NATIONAL STUDENT ORGANIZATION HOSTS EVENT ON INNOVATION AND ENTREPRENEURSHIP IN HIGHER EDUCATION

The University Innovation Fellows Mid-Atlantic Regional Meetup will take place November 1 – 2, 2014, at the University of Maryland and in downtown Washington, DC.

October 28, 2014

The University Innovation Fellows, a national student organization, will host a regional event at the University of Maryland and in downtown Washington, DC, focusing on innovation and entrepreneurship in higher education.

The University Innovation Fellows Mid-Atlantic Regional Meetup will take place November 1-2, 2014. Fellows from across the country will join students from the University of Maryland to participate in experiential activities focusing on entrepreneurial thinking, creativity, design thinking and community engagement.

This event is hosted by the University Innovation Fellows program in collaboration with Fellows from the University of Maryland who designed the two-day program: Atin Mittra (Aerospace Engineering B.S. ‘14), Valerie Sherry (Architecture M.A. ‘15) and Meenu Singh (Civil Engineering B.S. ‘14).

“Our goal is to get participants thinking about innovation and entrepreneurship in new, inclusive ways that challenge the traditional assumptions of what it means to integrate these fields within higher education,” said Meenu Singh, one of the three Fellows organizing the event.

The Fellows are a national community of student leaders who help students at their schools learn about innovation, entrepreneurship, creativity, design thinking and venture creation. The program is run by the National Center for Engineering Pathways to Innovation (Epicenter), which is funded by the National Science Foundation.

“Student engagement is the key to a vibrant and growing innovation ecosystem, yet many institutions struggle to inspire and activate their student body with top-down efforts,” said Humera Fasihuddin, leader of the University Innovation Fellows program for Epicenter. “Students, on the other hand, have been especially successful at igniting their campus culture across all majors. This event will be an opportunity for students to share best practices and develop new ideas.”

The theme of the event is “Creative Collisions” to help students incorporate innovation and entrepreneurship into all facets of student life and across all areas of study. The event is a collaborative experience that will allow participants to learn from practices at the University of Maryland and share insights from their home institutions.

Activities on November 1 will take place at the University of Maryland and include a creativity workshop, a discussion with administrators on partnerships with students, a campus scavenger hunt and a business model activity. Activities on November 2 will take place in downtown Washington, DC, and include a design challenge, visits to co-working spaces and points of interest, and a movement workshop on the National Mall.

A full schedule of activities is available upon request.

Media contact:
Laurie Moore
Communications Manager, Epicenter
(650) 561-6113
llhmoore@stanford.edu

About Epicenter:

The National Center for Engineering Pathways to Innovation (Epicenter) is funded by the National Science Foundation and directed by Stanford University and VentureWell (formerly NCIIA). Epicenter’s mission is to empower U.S. undergraduate engineering students to bring their ideas to life for the benefit of our economy and society. To do this, Epicenter helps students combine their technical skills, their ability to develop innovative technologies that solve important problems, and an entrepreneurial mindset and skillset. Epicenter’s three core initiatives are the University Innovation Fellows program for undergraduate engineering students and their peers; the Pathways to Innovation Program for institutional teams of faculty and university leaders; and a research program that informs activities and contributes to national knowledge on entrepreneurship and engineering education. Learn more and get involved at http://epicenter.stanford.edu/.

Purpose, Passion and the Quest for ‘Why?’: Today’s College Students Yearn to Make Sense of STEM

October 23, 2014/0 Comments/in Epicenter, Event, STEM, University Innovation Fellow /by Laurie Moore

The Massachusetts STEM Summit, held October 22, 2014, had roughly 1,300 attendees at the DCU Center in Worcester, Massachusetts. Attendees traveled from across the state to discuss engaging k-12 students in science, technology, math, engineering and independent research. The University Innovation Fellows were invited to present in the afternoon. The following excerpt appeared in the MA STEM Summit program booklet.

“Weed-em-out’ courses, dry lectures, rigorous math and an array of prerequisites stamp the love of learning out of young college students. Some universities are getting it right, but overall not so much. Fewer than 40% of students who enter college intending to major in a STEM field complete a STEM degree, according to the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST). Our nation needs us to produce one million more STEM college graduates than predicted. So, how do we, as K-12 educators, who care about the future of our most promising students, ensure a successful handoff to our collegiate counterparts? A new program called the University Innovation Fellows empowers college students to develop a culture of creativity and innovation. These students are developing strategies and learning opportunities that engage peers in project-based learning and human-centered design. The model of empowering students to develop their voice to serve as partners to faculty in bringing about institutional change has been a fruitful one, yielding innovation spaces, new courses and has even attracted alumni investment in new programs. University Innovation Fellows believe connecting high school graduates to a creative community of makers and innovators is the answer. Connecting freshman to learning opportunities that inspire students based on relevant and real-world problems as soon as they arrive at college is a means to keeping students engaged in STEM. As 168 Fellows at 85 schools work to expand and attract peers to innovation and entrepreneurship programs, the opportunity exists to create a bridge for high school students to a cool creative culture of like-minded students who can introduce and engage them in the innovation ecosystem. Recognized by the President’s Office of Science and Technology Policy, the University Innovation Fellows is a program of the Epicenter and is funded by the National Science Foundation. In this session, participants will be introduced to the work of two Fellows who also volunteer their time in local K-12 schools to inspire young STEM enthusiasts. Learn what triggered their interests in STEM and hear their recommendations for high schools to guide students towards successful STEM careers.

The session was moderated by the Fellows Senior Program Officer, Humera Fasihuddin. The two Fellows panelists were Ellery Addington-White and Kevin Desjardins (below).

Ellery Addington-White

Ellery is currently a senior at Beloit College in Wisconsin working to complete a Computer Science degree. He is actively involved in CELEB, the Center for Entrepreneurship in Liberal Education at Beloit. Find out more about his student priorities here.

Ellery became very interested in digital art in high school, which led him to teach the class to other students his junior year. He now volunteers his time to work with the Beloit Boys & Girls Club and other K-12 youth to make innovation, entrepreneurship, coding and computer science more accessible.

Kevin Desjardins

Kevin is a senior at the University of Massachusetts, Lowell. He is completing his degree in Civil Engineering and his taking his capstone project to the next level by creating an immersive, hands-on, project-based learning experience in Haiti. Find out more about his student priorities here.

Kevin has always had an interest in engineering. He works closely with Future Cities and other local organizations to bring underserved youth STEM education learning opportunities.

Hypothesis Affirmed! Greenville, SC Ignited By Southeastern Regional Meetup

October 9, 2014/2 Comments/in Clemson, Epicenter, Event, Furman, Meetup, Multi-school Collaboration, Regional Meetup, University Innovation Fellow /by uifellows

Last week, we tested our hypothesis that we could bring together a group of Fellows with other college students interested in creativity, innovation and design thinking and replicate the energy of our Annual Meetup at Google and Stanford at a place very far from Silicon Valley. We chose Greenville, South Carolina. Why? Because two of our star University Innovation Fellows happen to be in that region: Ben Riddle of Furman University, and Bre Przestrzelski of Clemson University, and their amazingly supportive faculty sponsors Ross McClain (Department Chair, Art, Furman) and John Desjardin (Associate Professor, Bioengineering, Clemson). What ensued gave strong support to our hypothesis.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/epicenterusa/sets/72157648089466547/player/

Ben and Bre’s work analyzing the Furman and Clemson Innovation & Entrepreneurship ecosystem informed their strategic plans to enhance that ecosystem (Furman Student Priorities, Clemson Student Priorities). They completed this work last year, over a 6-week WebEx-based program to become University Innovation Fellows and, as part of their training, flew to Google Headquarters and Stanford’s world-renowned d.school (the Hasso Plattner Design Institute). Over three days, 88 Fellows from all over the nation soaked up the innovation culture in Silicon Valley and discussed ways to lead a movement in student innovation, creativity and entrepreneurship on their campuses (March 2014 agenda, and photos). The Annual Meetup was transformative; both Ben and Bre saw the opportunity to replicate the magic and attract peers on campus.

Again, why Greenville? Program leaders, over the year that followed, discovered just how cool of a community Greenville, SC is, as both Fellows reported back the success and overwhelming support they received from institutional and community leaders. Greenville has a strong history of public-private partnership dating back to the entrepreneurial Mayor Max, under whose leadership the city attracted a major Hotel Chain and narrowed a four-lane thoroughfare into the charming downtown Main Street filled with great restaurants, culture, art and more. So, when the pair invited Epicenter and its founders, Stanford University and VentureWell, to co-facilitate design thinking and lean startup sessions with local experts, program leaders enthusiastically agreed. Thus was born the plan for the…

Southeastern Regional Meetup, Hosted by Clemson University and Furman University

Epicenter organizers, University Innovation Fellow program leaders and Fellows flew in from California, Massachusetts, Colorado, Minnesota, Michigan, Ohio, New York and the Virgin Islands. Fellows drove from North Carolina, Georgia, Virginia and even as far away as Michigan and Massachusetts! They were joined by 20 Furman and 20 Clemson students. All had one thing in common: a desire to learn the techniques of design thinking and lean startup, two approaches used to develop strong human-centered ideas and develop scalable business models around them. Using real-world issues from the Greenville community, students applied new-found techniques in observation, empathy, brainstorming, prototyping, customer segmentation & value proposition development.

Students developed low-resolution prototypes and articulated real opportunities to improve Greenville – a more friendly main street and redesigning the eating experience. Students learned by doing and they discovered that their entrepreneurial mindset could be honed on real-world challenges in their local community. On the flip side, community members saw students as motivated and capable individuals who bring a fresh-perspective and an open mind to arrive at highly innovative and achievable solutions to their challenges. One student openly remarked during the debrief, “I learned more this weekend than in the entire semester,” a sentiment often heard by many who first encounter hands-on and experiential learning opportunities. The mood at the reception with community and academic leaders was one you’d see at a sporting event, as evident by the Bear Ninja Cowboy video posted below. This kind of enthusiasm for learning can transform our nation’s higher education institutions. We look forward to replicating this success in Washington D.C. and at UMD on November 1st and 2nd, ringing in National Entrepreneurship Month with an invitation only Meetup for 100 University Innovation Fellows. More on that soon!

~ Humera Fasihuddin, Co-director, University Innovation Fellows (on behalf of Leticia Britos Cavagnaro, Katie Dzugan & Laurie Moore)

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=olFpcx6x4Z8&w=560&h=315]

A Big THANK YOU to our Collaborators and Supporters

We are extremely grateful to the many local community members, without whom, this past weekend would not have been possible:

Design Thinkers Group USA, especially Joel, Marc and Susan, for their tremendous efforts in co-designing and co-facilitating a two-day experiential learning experience with our colleague Leticia Britos Cavagnaro from Stanford.

John Desjardin, Clemson, for his awesome giant room-sized Business Model Canvas exercise, imparting Lean Startup skills to participants in an experiential way (and his moral support).

Ross McClain, Furman, for forging an unprecedented partnership between a liberal arts institution and a major research university (and his moral support).

OpenWorks, for being so accommodating and allowing us to use their open work space for our activities on Friday (see agenda below).

Greenville Health System, especially to Robin, for joining us to discuss what you should never do in an interview — and making it funny.

Clemson MBA at ONE, for giving us access to their swanky new space on Main Street.

Also a special shout out to Envision SC, the Spiro Institute, Ten at the Top, SCBio and all of our additional facilitators and guests of honor.

Fellows Southeastern Regional Meetup Collaborators and Sponsors

Fellows Southeastern Regional Meetup Agenda

How You Can Join a Student-Driven Movement

September 19, 2014/0 Comments/in Epicenter, University Innovation Fellow /by Laurie Moore

Do you feel that there is a gap in the student learning experience as compared to the skills graduates need to compete in today’s economy? Do you feel that your campus would benefit from student-driven demand regarding experiential learning opportunities around innovation and entrepreneurship? If you answered yes to both of these questions — you have encountered 110 like-minded students representing 74 U.S. higher education institutions.

Students are joining a national movement* of undergraduate engineers who are changing the face of higher education — Epicenter’s University Innovation Fellows (Fellows). Last year alone, students created over 20 maker spaces, founded student clubs and organizations, hosted events and workshops and even worked with faculty to design courses.

Epicenter’s Fellows program is a 6-week intensive and experiential online training program that introduces candidates to design thinking, lean methodologies and student-led change strategies. This knowledge leads students to build the necessary skills to implement lasting institutional change on their campus. Throughout training, candidates are exposed to a network of Fellows across the U.S. that enables them to share ideas, stories and key learnings around an array of resources and topics that bring innovation and entrepreneurship to campus.

Applications for the Fellows program are now live! The deadline is Friday, October 31, 2014. If you are a student, find more information about the program here and information about the application process here. If you are a faculty member looking to sponsor a student on your campus, find more information about the role of a faculty sponsor here and more information about Epicenter’s mission here.

To read the full press release about the October 31 application deadline, and to find more information about Epicenter, click here.

*The National Center for Engineering Pathways to Innovation (Epicenter) is funded by the National Science Foundation and directed by Stanford University and VentureWell (formerly NCIIA). Our mission is to change undergraduate engineering education, but Epicenter’s University Innovation Fellows considers all majors.

Summer 2014 Updates

September 9, 2014/0 Comments/in Epicenter, Partners, University Innovation Fellow /by Laurie Moore

Dear Fellows,

We can hardly believe that school is back in session – and we’re almost half way through training! We hope all of you enjoyed your summer endeavors and are settling back into campus life and managing your course loads this fall. As we catch up with you individually, we’d like to recap what we have been up to this summer:

National Academy of Engineering’s Grand Challenges for Engineering
April 30 – June 1, 2014

UIFs & Dan Mote, National Academy of Engineering

Our first event of the summer was hosted at the National Academy of Engineering in Washington D.C. During these two days, Fellows discussed the 14 Grand Challenges identified by the Grand Challenge Scholar’s Program (GCSP) alongside deans from institutions across the country. Karuna Relwani (UPitt) presented on the student panel with students from Engineers Without Borders (EWB), Engineering Projects In Community Service (EPICS) and the GCSP. Each student discussed their experience with these programs at their institution and also their key learnings from being exposed to experiential engineering. Megna Saha (Georgia Tech), Mary Wilcox (ASU Tempe), Yifan Ge (Bucknell), Valerie Sherry (UMD College Park), Ben Riddle (Furman), Lauren Distler (James Madison), Natalia von Windheim (NC State) and Corey Brugh (Colorado School of Mines) joined as well to light the fire for these deans to commit to creating change on their campus. The outcome of these two days was 66 deans signatures that solidified their commitment to bringing visibility to the Grand Challenges on their campus. For more information, visit dreamdesigndeliver.org to see a video of the commitment that Fellows made and additional articles written by both Megna and Mary after this event.

Deshpande Symposium for Innovation & Entrepreneurship in Higher Education
June 10 -12, 2014

UIFs & Desh Deshpande, Deshpande Symposium

Back in June, Humera and I hoped in a car and met Nate Smialek (UPitt), Mary Wilcox (ASU Tempe), Rob Soloman (UWMilwaukee), Ben Riddle (Furman), Bre Przestrzelski (Clemson) and Valerie Sherry (UMD College Park) in Lowell, Massachusetts for the Deshpande Symposium. We also conveniently saw Kevin Desjardins (UMass Lowell) and his faculty sponsor Tom O’Donnell. The Deshpande Symposium is designed around innovation and entrepreneurship ecosystems, curriculum, commercialization and trending topics. Fellows facilitated a session titled: Students: Secret Agents of Change. Fellows discussed their path to serving as campus change agents and offered tips on how to foster student engagement. We had two faculty sponsors join us: Ross McClain of Furman University and Ilya Avdeev of the University of Wisconsin Milwaukee. To add to the discussion, the faculty spoke to their approaches in cultivating a faculty sponsor-Fellow relationship and how they were supporting their Fellows strategies for change on campus. In addition, we got to visit UMass Lowell’s M2D2, a Medical Device Development Center; the New England Robotics Validation and Experimentation (NERVE) Center; and Emerging Technologies and Innovation Center (ETIC).

EurekaFest 2014
June 20 – 21, 2014

Katie Dzugan, UIF Program Associate (left) & Fellow Hristina Milojevic, Union College at EurekaFest 2014.

EurekaFest is an MIT and Lemelson Foundation sponsored event hosted at MIT in June. InvenTeams are high school student teams invited to showcase their work from the year throughout the day in various formats — presentations and a demonstration. Student Inventions included a robotic snowblower to a pedal desk that created energy to light up a classroom to a reinvented irrigation and water system. In the evening, were the collegiate prizes which showcased the winners of two categories, “Cure it!” and “Use it!” The Lemelson-MIT student prize winners presented their technology-based inventions that were designed to improve healthcare and consumer devices and tools. The winners ranged from an easily accessible classroom 3D printer to a device that helped people monitor glucose levels. We were joined by Hristina Milojevic (Union), Natalia von Windheim (NC State) and Malik Oliver (Fayetteville) and also received a tour of the amazing MIT Media Lab. The MIT Media Lab is THE. ULTIMATE. MAKER SPACE. Any undergraduate student that wants to support the work of the many research teams within the media lab can do so with ease. Imagine this at every campus.

Epicenter Research Summit
August 4 – 5, 2014

Cooking Up New Research Ideas: With Students, About Students; Epicenter Research Summit 2014

Fast forwarding to August, several students joined us at the Epicenter Research Summit held at Stanford’s d.school. Fellows in attendance were Hristina Milojevic (Union), Bre Przestrzelski (Clemson), Gurlovleen Rathore (Texas A&M), Ben Riddle (Furman), Elliot Roth (Virginia Commonwealth), Valerie Sherry (UMD College Park) and Gregory Wilson (University of Georgia). Along with program leaders, Fellows co-facilitated a session titled, Cooking Up New Research Ideas: With Students, About Students. We were extremely impressed with how each Fellow stepped up and truly helped plan and lead this session for an audience of roughly 70 researchers.

Researchers saw first hand that students were much more than research subjects and recipients of education. They could be active partners and co-designers of their educational experience. After a high-level program summary, researchers joined four

Valerie Sherry (UMD) during UIIF breakout groups; Epicenter Research Summit 2014

breakout groups, each led by a pair of University Innovation Fellows. They explored two research threads of interest to students:

The what, who and why of successful I&E spaces for students: maker spaces, incubators, accelerators; and
Personal and contextual factors that support the success of UIFs as change agents.

As a result of their participation, Fellows have reportedly joined together to undertake research projects with one another and with Researchers. For more information on the Summit, click here.

Training, Fall 2014
August 25 – October 4, 2014

Fall 2014 Training Orientation; August 25

We have launched our Fall training! Much of our summer was consumed by application intake, interviews and planning training for the fall cohort. During the afternoon of Monday, August 25, over the course of 3 hours, we held a successful orientation session via Blue Jeans with over 80 participants, including new candidates, faculty sponsors and Epicenter staff! In those 3 hours, we had an overview of the University Innovation Fellows mission, a faculty-only orientation discussing cultivating a strong candidate-faculty sponsor relationship and two breakout sessions for students before we convened to a close. So far, candidates have covered design thinking and have interviewed current Fellows to create 30 new how-to guides on the Wiki. This week they are surveying the ecosystem and delivering the first draft of their landscape canvases! Training will also cover spaces of innovation, the lean approach, students’ strategic priorities and finish with their strategies to give voice to student priorities for Innovation & Entrepreneurship.

Student IP Mission

Caleb Carr (UC Denver) has done an amazing job of getting Fellows involved to push the national agenda of student intellectual property issues. As a team, these Fellows are creating a full campaign, including a website, a petition, a Facebook and indiegogo page — even drafting bill language for the Higher Education Reauthorization Act that went up for revision this August. The following is a request for additional help from Caleb Carr (caleb.carr@ucdenver.edu):

I wanted to thank each and every one of you for your work and support these last couple weeks while pushing this very important initiative. We really are starting to lift a new leaf on the topic surrounding undergraduate/master’s research, innovation, and entrepreneurship. I am emailing you all to request some help. We need help in the following areas:

Logo Development
Marketing
Social Media Management
Lobbying
Podcast development

If any of you have specific strengths that would help us in these specific areas and would be willing to put some time in it would be greatly appreciated. As always, if you have any questions or concerns please dont hesitate to contact me via email or phone. <End Message>

**Please note that this initiative is not directly supported by Epicenter or it’s affiliated partners: the National Science Foundation, Stanford University and the NCIIA.**

Meeting with NAB board members — Key Takeaways

Susan Brennan; Epicenter Research Summit 2014

Humera, Leticia and I met with three of the Fellows National Advisory Board Members — President Rick Miller of Olin College, Susan Brennan of Bloom Energy and Steve Blank of Lean Launchpad and Stanford. Our initial meeting included three Fellows: Bre Przestrzelski (Clemson), Ben Riddle (Furman) and Jaime Arribas (Morgan State). Way to represent! They discussed the projects they are implementing on their campus and what being a Fellow means to them. We met with Susan Brennan in California, just after the Epicenter Research Summit to discuss future strategies for the Fellows program.

(left to right) Katie Dzugan, Humera Fasihuddin & Leticia Britos Cavagnaro; Olin College 2014

Later in August, we had a wonderful visit from Leticia — she came to Massachusetts this time! During her stay we visited President Rick Miller at Olin College, had a wonderful tour from an undergraduate engineering student and also had lunch to meet a few key faculty members.

In other news: please keep up with the google group, where we frequently post travel opportunities for Fellows to travel around the nation with us and represent the national movement. We also hope you are available to join us for one of the two Regional Meetups this fall — Southeast: Greenville, SC (October 3&4) and Northeast: UMD College Park (early November).

Posts

The new Fellows join the program from the following schools:

About the University Innovation Fellows program:

Media contact:

The new Fellows join the program from the following schools:

About the University Innovation Fellows program:

Media contact:

My anxiety and grief management journal

A program to discover, design, and prototype your future dreams

Part 1: Future Vision Lab

Part 2: Prototyping Factory

Part 3: Future Challenge

Finding happiness in a constantly changing job market

Why we held a paid changemaking workshop to empower student leaders

#BigBeacon Twitter Chat – April 22, 2015

Join the conversation at 8 p.m. EST. Tweeting as @epicenterusa, using the #BigBeacon.

123 U.S. Students Named University Innovation Fellows by NSF-Funded Epicenter

Southeastern Regional Meetup

Mid-Atlantic Regional Meetup

PRESS RELEASE: NATIONAL STUDENT ORGANIZATION HOSTS EVENT ON INNOVATION AND ENTREPRENEURSHIP IN HIGHER EDUCATION

Southeastern Regional Meetup, Hosted by Clemson University and Furman University

A Big THANK YOU to our Collaborators and Supporters

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Tweeting as @epicenterusa, using the #BigBeacon.