Priorities:North Dakota State University Student Priorities

Overview

The Innovation and Entrepreneurship ecosystem at North Dakota State University could best be described as being in an incubation state. A workable amount of resources are present, with a number of key resources, tools, and programs at various stages of planning and implementation that will allow the campus environment to flourish.

There are a number of positive aspects to the campus that students can make use of. NDSU maintains the following services that one would generally expect to find as ‘standard’ at a research/innovation university:

• Tech Transfer Office; formal Intellectual Property management
• Business Incubator; space, place, and people for startups to make their mark
• Student-industry collaboration as part of the standard educational experience (senior design, engineering)

These services work together to allow an innovation culture to exist on campus.

Upon deep analysis of the Innovation and Entrepreneurship ecosystem on NDSU’s campus using the landscape canvas, select gaps in the ecosystem were identified. While a number of concerns, big and small, were noted, two gaps in particular have been chosen as critical areas of work to be focused on.

Link to Prezi overview of campus ecosystem.

Calling all Students

Informational Session (come hear plans, offer feedback and help expand opportunities for all students)

• Where: Presented to NDSU Bison Microventure research group
• When: 10-24-13
• RSVP: N/A
• Attendance: 8 students, 1 faculty
• Duration: 40 minutes, incl. Q+A

Second Informational Session (come hear plans, offer feedback and help expand opportunities for all students)

• Where: NDSU Student Union
• When: TBD
• RSVP: TBD, andrew.dalman@ndsu.edu

Third Informational Session (presentation to faculty and community innovation focus group)

• Where: TBD
• When: TBD
• RSVP: TBD, andrew.dalman@ndsu.edu

Strategy #1: Realization

The first area of focus, or ‘strategy,’ is based off of the Realized section of the landscape canvas. This section deals with the ability of students to commit to an opportunity, eg; licensing a technology, forming a venture, and/or attaining legal status. A review of this section reveals that while there exist a few spaces for venture startup/incubation and a TTO for protecting intellectual property, a stark lack of funding, grant, or investment assistance presents itself.

Following are an array of strategies that will fully address Gap #1 over a 2-3 year period:

Tactic #1: Acquire an Innovation Space

• Description:

Andy's research has shown that no small number of innovation cultures have started with a simple place for like minds to gather and discuss ideas in an informal setting- even something as simple as an old closet filled with whiteboards has done the trick! NDSU does not currently have anywhere that students can identify as such a space. Finding a random empty classroom is not an uncommon practice for students looking to work on a project, typically with a few group members, but this comes with its own complications... a class could come in and take the space, students aren't surrounded by any other fresh minds, and the work done in such a space is almost guaranteed to be gone in the morning.

Providing students with a place 'with a sign on the door' designating it as purely a space for students to meet and hang out with innovative and entreprenurial interests in mind will encourage and nourish the formation of ideas and student innovation teams/entrepreneurs, in no particular order. As rules can have a tendency to stifle innovation, the objective is to keep this space as free and open as possible, accessible to all majors and during as much of the day as is feasible.

• Team Leader:: Andrew Dalman - championoning the idea of a student innovation space & currently in discussion for a few potential locations. So exciting!

• Milestones:

1.  Scouting of open (or offered) spaces to determine size, condition, and work required to make it usable. Schedule: Early-Mid November 2013
2.  Creation of a shopping/salvage/'stealing'/donation list for required items such as whiteboards, tables, at least one pc, etc. Schedule: Mid-late November 2013. Prerequisite: Scouting
3.  Movement of first equipment into room. Putting a formal sign on the room to give it purpose! Schedule: Early December 2013, but heavily dependant on date we'll be able to move in. This part isn't too much up to us.  Prerequisite: acquisition of  required materials.
4. Hold first meeting! Campuswide announcement about grand opening of NDSU's first student innovation space. Bring in a few speakers, makerspace veterans, etc to get things started. Schedule: previous milestone completion + 1-2 weeks; Est mid Dec 2013-early Jan 2014.
5. Designate student leader to organize regular events promoting and encouraging I&E, to be held at this location. UI fellow may take a backstage role at this point, if desired. Schedule: mid Jan 2014-mid Feb 2014. Author note: this time flows quite nicely with the tail end NDSU's Innovation Challenge. The facility will ideally be up and running for the stressful last few weeks, and will additionally provide the only innovation events on campus during off-year of Innovation Challenge.

Tactic #2: Acquire Resources

• Description: While a room with a whiteboard is enough to get us started, I'd like to expand upon that as much as possible. I'm considering this a seperate tactic as it involves going through different channels and asking for entirely different things from different people. The goal here is to network with as many higher-ups who support the movement as possible (many of whom have already been interviewed for the landscape canvas) and see what kind of extra equipment their department might be willing to lend. We're talking computers, arduinos, soldering irons, scrap metal, hot glue guns.... anything not 'required' to run the I-space but would still contribute to its usefulness. More importantly, anything not nailed down! People resources are going in this tactic as well. The I-space will require a semi-regular pool of mentors, be they faculty, community leaders, or just motivate volunteers. The purpose of this group will be to offer more everyday advice and counsel than bringing in a speaker or holding an event.
• Team Leader::  Andrew Dalman pending response from a few mentors who may be able to champion this instead; TBD. I'm leaving the TBD tacked on here as I'd like to delegate this one off as soon as possible but do not currently have an alternative champion.
• Milestones:

1. Perform an interest survey of what students would like to see or have access to. This will allow me/us to focus our resources on acquiring what we need....without cluttering up the space with tools that won't be used. Schedule: acquisition of space +1 week; Mid December 2013 but dependant on move-in date.
2. See what's there... and see what isn't there. What can we add to the space in order to bring in demographics of students we notice are lacking? Schedule: inauguration of I-space+1-4 weeks; Early January 2014.
3. Keep in contact with staff who operate labs, department chairs, etc... to keep well informed of any 'juicy' equipment or programs that are being underutilized. No schedule.
4. Recruit a pool of staff/volunteers/leaders/students willing to 'exist' in the space for a few hours every week, helping studentsas necessary. Schedule: inauguration of I-space -2 weeks or so to allow for recruitment. Early December 2013.

Tactic #3: Putting it all Together

• Description: There does not currently exist any record of I&E resources on campus- when interviewing faculty and students for the Landscape Canvas, only occasionally did the same resource get mentioned twice. During creation of the canvas, I learned that while NDSU has plenty of cool people doing cool things, very few of them actually know about each other. Fewer still actually talk with each other or attempt to cooperate. We're going to fix that by compiling the most comprehensive single resource index that NDSU has ever seen- a distillation of the Landscape Canvas, with a few tweaks for organization, etc. This will truly allow anyone interested to find out what is going on around campus, the level/scale of the work, and most importantly, who to contact for more information. Think of this: an entire wiki dedicated explicitly to categorizing and displaying all of the innovative activities on campus, editable and accesible by those doing the innovation!
  • Team Leader:: Andrew Dalman. I'm going to take lead on the initial formation of this, as I've already done some of the work for the Landscape Canvas. This project may best be set up as an NDSU innovation wiki, requiring very little oversight.
• Milestones:

1. Fleshing out of the Landscape Canvas & reformatting it. The canvas, while 'done' (and never will be), is still being tweaked and added to as busy faculty get around to finding time to meet. The Canvas also requires a total reformat in order to be presentible in wiki form, at leasy in the way Andy envisions it. Schedule: Early November 2013
2. Launch of wiki. A wiki is expected to be a constantly evolving creature, so aside from risk of a 'premature' launch with no content, the wiki can be launched early. Schedule: Mid December 2013; Give 1 month to create and populate pages for all of the Landscape Canvas entries.
3. Notification of all entries of their presence in the wiki. It's now their responsibility to keep their pages up to date. The objective is for the wiki to be THE resource amongst the NDSU I&E community, so groups will have motivation to keep their page up-to-date. Schedule: Launch of Wiki - 1 week, if possible. This is to allow groups to make changes to their preset pages.

Strategy #2: Provide Financial and Legal Assistance for I&E Teams

It was noted upon review of the landscape canvas that NDSU I&E resources in grant, legal, and financial assistance were found sorely wanting. The ability for teams/individuals to understand how to receive funding is of paramount importance as, much as we hate to admit it, innovation generally isn't free....patents definitely aren't free, and turning an idea into a marketable product is something that can kill a project if the financials are not planned for.

Following are an array of strategies that will fully address Gap #2 over a 2-3 year period:

Tactic #1: Distillation of Grants

• Description: Grants like SBIRs, Venture grants, NSF grants, etc... aren't the easiest thing to just jump right into, especially considering that your main competition is established professors and businesses- heck, some of them even write grants exclusively for a living! We're going to find a diverse pool of grant recipients in and around NDSU and interview them. If possible, we'd like to review their grant as well. The objective? Distilling as much information as possible into a 'how to' guide for writing grants. Generalized, of course, but I foresee the document having a basic template of succesful grants along with at least a 'what works, what doesn't' section. With it, students will have a much better understanding of how money flows in a research environment- and how to get some for themselves.
• Team Leader:: TBD. This will require sifting through large amounts of literature. This may be a good time to take advantage of non-engineer I&E supporters who want to assist but don't have technical expertise.
• Milestones:

1. Start searching for succesful grant recipients- compile a list. Additionally, see who is willing to allow us to see their grant proposal(s). Schedule: now until August 2014.
2. Compile data and distill what works/what doesn't, any patterns, etc. Delegate, delegate, delegate! This can be started as soon as a few grants/interviews are received. Schedule: Projected early March 2014 at the earliest; Andy won't have time to pursue team building until I-challenge is done in February.
3. Create a rough guide, posted in PDF form on the wiki and sent to all interviewed persons for review and comment. Schedule: Unknown; Likely August 2014 at the earliest. Let's say 'fall semester 2014'.
4. Finalize document. Andy is realizing, as he writes this, that a document control scheme may have to be developed in order to ensure things are kept in order and up to date. Schedule: TBD

Tactic #2: Intellectual Property Management

• Description: The author requests that you note the use of 'management' vs. 'protection.' Currently, there is little understanding amongst students that work they do that utilizes 'significant university resources' qualifies as university property. The native stance of the IP management system here is to protect all IP generated, not tomanage and distribute it. We hope that, by working with the Tech Transfer Office and university higher-ups, a more transparent system can be developed... one that can be explained to students quickly and efficiently. Most importantly, the delivery system for getting the knowledge to students has to be structured in such a manner that it doesn't scare them off!  Barring the ability to get the TTO more involved in proactively assisting with student IP, we at least hope to provide students with a seminar, guide, etc... on what exactly the relationship between them, their work, and the university actually is.
• Team Leader:: TBD
• Milestones:

1. Meetings with the TTO to review the NDSU IP policy in detail. Schedule: Early December '13.
2. Suggested ideas for revision, focusing on transparency and clarity in wording. Schedule: Early January '14.
3. Distill as much knowledge as possible into a pamphlet form- chosen because it is simple to both distribute and process as a reader. Schedule: TBD- Spring semester '14
4. Arrange for seminars, bootcamps, etc... to be held educating students on IP, focusing on the relationship between them, their work, and NDSU. Schedule: TBD- Fall semester '14 (no time to organize until then)

Tactic #3: Creation of a streamlined program to START BUSINESSES!

• Description With this tactic, we're going to work closely with the NDSU research park and Tech Transfer Office to establish as best we can a formal step-by-step process for entreprenuers looking to start a business and/or license their own IP back from the university. Note that the point here is not to constrain but to assist. The purpose of the formal system is to allow rails for the students to follow along their journey- right now there is nothing in place to assist students in the early or middle stages of planning, for example. Late stage business-founding can be handled by the Research Incubator... but how do you know to contact them? That's precisely what we're going to fix. At the very least, this tactic will produce a flow chart of steps, people, and processes that have been succesful in the past for starting businesses at NDSU.
• Team Leader: TBD
• Milestones:

1. Meeting with boots on the ground at as many levels of business development as possible- as they relate to students on campus. Schedule: now-August 2014.
2. Establishing a rough chart for 'how and who' an idea progresses through the pipeline and who can assist with each step. Schedule: summer '14-January 2015.
3. Formally launching a 'fast track to business creation' (name definitely not final!) program, or at least being able to feature it as one of the services of the I-space. Schedule: Spring semester 2015. Reason: The fulfillment of this tactic requires that almost every other tactic listed thus far be fairly well completed before it can be done. This is also one of the more ambitious tactics in play, banking on the success of the I-space and cooperation between multiple departments.

Strategy #3: Creating a More Applied, Hands on, Undergraduate Experience

Following are an array that will fully address Gap #1 over a 2-3 year period:

Tactic #1:Hit the Ground Running- Student Driven Experience.

• Description: The sooner students realize that the faster they can get involved with the campus, potential employers, real world work and experience the more excited they will be about taking the bull by the horns to steer their desires in whichever way they want them to go. Many students dreaded the way their high school educations were conducted. In high school lots of people say, "When am I ever going to use this stuff?" Now is time! Unforetunately, many freshman students have no clue what they want to do with their lives, and others just need to follow the directions to the map they have made in their heads (minority of students). The catering to these "undecided" students is essential to change the mindset of what it is to experience college. (Not just going to parties) The basis of this tactic is to empower students to actively seek hands on skills in their choosen career path. This maybe in the form of jobs, volunteering, clubs, and other outgoing groups.
• Team Leaders: UNIV 189 professors? Dorm RAs? People responsible for scheduling motivational speakers (Specifically for college students)? I placed question marks behind each of these leaders because this is just what comes to mind of people who would be able to aid in this tactic. Possibly more.
• Milestones:
  • Support from potential team leaders
  • Actually getting students to go to speakers, be active in clubs, take internships, and learn what they want to learn outside of the traditional classroom.
  • Students pressure higher-ups of the university to cater to their educational wants.
  • University and individual colleges alter ciriculums
  • Entire college culture is changed from "Partying" to "Let's do something for ourselves along with the world"

Tactic #2: Classroom Driven Experience (Science Student Perspective)

• Description: Use critical thinking and problem solving educational tactics along with or after a  traditional lecture class and lab is complete. Labs are where these problem solving strategies can be applied more. An additional lab course should be available that adhears to more of using what they learned in that lab and lecture in a more investigative/problem solving way. This critical thinking experience would come after the student has complete the previous course.The class would be structured around what I would say as mini-research experiments. The students would use previous knowledge to help guide themselves into theories and hypothesies of what they believe could be the answer to whatever they are working on. Then they would carry out experiments to tests these ideas. -A very rough outline on how the class would be structured.
• Team Leaders: Jordan Brummond, I have heard rumors of similiar sounding classes that will be starting up soon in my department by - Janice Haggart. I also believe Dr. Angela Hodgson is in her second year of a similiar class.
• Milestones:
  • Curriculum Assesments
  • Find evidence that students who take this class are more succesful academically/professionally and provide it to the masses- Brings hype to the class
  • Integrate into regular ciriculum
  • Faculty support from multiple departments
  • Development of similiar courses in other departments

Tactic #3: Mentor DrivenExperience

• Description: Having outside entrepreneurs, businesses, or research professors "take in" students as mentees/apprentices/interns. A good comparison would be like a "Big Brother, Big Sister" for students with drive and passion to get right out into the real world while they work on their degrees.
• Team Leaders: TBD
• Milestones:
  • Small number of mentors ready to pave the way
  • Incorporate into already existing career fair
  • More mentors view it as a recruitment tool to attrack the best and brightest
  • "Career fair" specifically as the recruitment tool
  • Students rewarded for their work other than the experience
  • Succes stories as a recruitment tool for both students and new mentors

Strategy #4 Opening up Lab spaces for all Engineering Majors

Students need a work to develop their ideas. The college of Engineering has a number of labs with space, materials and equipment to further these ideas but they are not open to all NDSU students and even other Engineering students. The only way to get into many of the labs is to go in during business hours and be of that particular major. Allowing any Engineering student to access these labs would help provide a starter innovation space and show need for one in the future.

Tactic #1- Develop more connections between various engineering majors (Senior Design, ect) to encourage students not as far in the program to begin working in other labs from an earlier date

Description- Form bonds between all majors under the College of Engineering

Team Leaders

• Univ 189 Professors
• Academic Advisors
• Senior Design Adviors

Milestones

• Convince the Dean of Engineering and department heads that it is beneficial to get outside of their specific major
• Form more interdisciplinary senior designs
• Develop strong ties between majors

Tactic #2 Open up Computer Labs for all majors

Description- Allow key card access to all engineering computer labs by all engineering students

Team Leaders

• Lab Instructors
• IT Department
• UIF Students

Milestones

• Gain computer lab access

Tactic #3 Open up Technical Labs for all majors

Decription- Open technical labs like the IME, ME, EE, AG, and other labs so any Engineering major can enter them

Team Leaders

• Lab Instructors
• Department Heads
• UIF Students
• Students

Milestones

• Allow students to work in labs during business hours (8-5)
• Look into getting off hours lab space for weeknights and weekends for students to get into the current lab

Impact

Taking a Step Back...

The best opportunities for entrepreneurship and innovation mean nothing if people aren't involved. We feel that to create a community of entrepreneurs we have to first create a community where people can just be people. That is why one of our main priorities is to bring an organization to campus that will host events where all expectations to be innovative or have creative ideas are eliminated. It's called the Hammock Initiative, or Hi for short and its vision is simple.

We wantto see people gathered together for the purpose of relaxing, enjoying each other’s company and, literally, hanging out. This vision may not sound audacious or ambitious, and that’s the point. It’s an opportunity for people to be, not do. - @HiFargo'

By getting people together to hammock for the sake of just being, we believe natural conversation where ideas and innovation are born will start all on their own. And with how busy people are, I think we can all agree that some time set aside to relax is needed. 

University Wide Involvement Whitepages

There is a large number of organizations on and off campus that are beneficial to innovation and entrepreneaurship. NDSU overhauled its organization database recently but it is not all inclusive the and search button does not work like it should. The other issue is that it does not tie into the community. The Fargo/Moorhead area has a strong I&E culture but there is no easy way for students to search and see what is available. 

Goal-Create a wiki-based whitepage style repository of all innovative and entreprenearistic events on campus and in the community. 

Tactic- Create a wiki page for the university organizations

Tactic- Compile a list of current on campus activities and allow students to add or edit activites as needed

Related Links

North Dakota State University

Andrew Dalman