Priorities:MTU University Student Priorities

Overview

Michigan Tech’s campus is poised to be a model for student innovation and entrepreneurship. The State of Michigan has recognized the Houghton / Hancock area as a hotbed of innovation, and efforts to connect the School of Business and the School of Engineering are creating new business opportunities daily.

The problem isn’t ideas. It rarely ever is. Uniquely, Michigan Tech doesn’t suffer from a talent gap. Michigan Tech’s engineers are recruited around the globe for their hands-on experience and industry-focused education.

We’ll include a story to summarize the problem at Michigan Tech:  One day in early April, a venture capitalist (VC) from Silicon Valley came to Michigan Tech to do due-diligence on a new technology being developed in 3D printing. The VC gave a speech and discussed her time at Stanford. She said, “I never thought about being involved in venture capital, but when I got to school, everyone was talking about starting a business and I felt like I needed to get plugged into that ecosystem.” Michigan Tech lacks that passion, enthusiasm, and culture. These three strategies are designed to remedy that challenge.

A new center for innovation and entrepreneurship is the proposed solution. It uses new academic opportunities, event programming, and startup support to drive a culture shift towards innovation and entrepreneurship.

YouTube Pitch

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Fall 2014 Strategies

Strategy One: Invention Space 

A small maker space is currently in the works to be implemented in the current Enterprise lab. At this time, there are very few spaces on campus where students can come together and work collaboratively and have access to prototyping tools and supplies. Much of the renovation necessary to create an effective invention space has been completed, but additional support is needed to gather tools and supplies. This space will allow us to obtain student feedback in order to potentially expand to a much larger and extensive invention space on campus.

This space will serve multiple purposes outside of providing a collaborative workspace. It can be used to hold classes in an non-traditional style classroom with an alternative setup. The Invention Space will also host events focusing on innovation and entrepreneurship on campus mentioned below. The space will also serve as an "IP Free" zone in hopes that students would be less worried about having to worry about legal issues with the University and more focused on creating new ideas.

Key Features:

Movable furniture: tables with adjustable heights, adjustable rolling chairs, and stackable seating.

Prototyping supplies: one wall of the room will be lined with cheap craft supplies and an array of tools for students to use

Technology: projector for student teams to present their ideas and 3-4 desktop computers used for product design

Other: storage space for student teams, portable whiteboards, and power distribution throughout the space for students to plug in

Strategy Two: I&E Event Series

After creating an amazing collaborative space on campus, there will be plenty of opportunities to host events focused on innovation and entrepreneurship. These events will focus on creating excitement about the new initiatives on campus and recruit motivated students for the new I&E section of the Pavlis Honors College. The Pathways team has been working on bringing in a few speakers, and the student programming board is already planning an event to be held in the space.

Examples of events that can be held in the space include:

Speaker Series - Bringing in guest speakers who have had experience with I&E has proven to be a strong motivating force for involving students. Possible topics include opportunity recognition, legal principles, entrepreneurial finance, strategic partnering and building effective startup teams.

Make-a-thon - an opportunity for student teams to come together and brainstorm possible solutions for an and all ideas. Some of these projects and ideas could potentailly be carried on after the end of the event.

3 Day Startup - As mentioned in the spring overview, the goal of the event is to connect engineers who may be interested in working with a startup to business leaders with ideas they would love to see come to life.

Strategy Three: StartupTech

StartupTech is an Enterprise team that connects tops student talent to student led startups. It utilizes the existing enterprise infrastructure to ensure student involvement by allowing students to work on a startup team as part of their required credits for graduation. Connecting engineering teams to students motivated by turning an idea into a business will help promote business development far more than it currently is at Michigan Tech.

The program will provide supprt for new entreprenuers by sponsoring workshops, recruiting advisors, and giving these teams a space to work and the resources necessary to turn their dreams into reality. Hopefully this program would be implemented alongside of the expansion to the larger invention space on campus, providing teams with space in a modern office equiped with state of the art technology. Funds would also be available for some business development expenses such as travel expenses, office supplies, hardware, software licenses, etc.

A Board of Directors for the program would consist of faculty involved in I&E on campus, a representative from the Houghton SmartZone and a student with startup and leadership experience. The board will be responsible for selecting the ventures to include in the program as well as monitoring the students participating in the program.

Strategy Four: Innovation Learning Community

With the formation of the new Pavlis Honors College on Michigan Tech's campus, the are plenty of new opportunities available to introduce innovation and creative thinking early in the student experience. One of the best ways to inspire a shared vision within students is provide them with the opportunity to spend time with other students who are interested in similar ideas. By creating an environment where students are constantly challenged to think differently in their everyday experiences, they will develop a more diverse set of problem solving skills to implement in their daily lives.

Next year the Pavlis Honors College will have a learning community for first year students in the College. This will be a great opportunity to test out some creative ways to incorporate creative thinking into residence hall life. Resident Assistants are currently required to create programs for their students to participate in and this would be an exceptional opportunity to test out some new ideas.

Spring 2014 Stragegies

Strategy One: Command the Dialogue 

Overview: As mentioned above, the culture at Michigan Tech rarely centers on new inventions and entrepreneurship. The Memorial Union Board X (MUBX) is designed to change this through a series of comprehensive programming opportunities outlined below.

MUBX derives its name from our student programing board: the Memorial Union Board (MUB Board). MUB Board has an extensive network and much brand recognition on campus. This new committee (MUBX) will have access to the programming experience, financial resources, and advisory support that are afforded to our student union. 

3DS  (Fall 2014)

MUBX will be responsible for bringing the Three Day Startup (3DS) event to Michigan Tech’s campus. The goal of event will be to connect engineers who may be interested in working with a startup to business leaders with ideas that they’d love to see come to fruition.

MUBX will work with the School of Business and Economics to support 3DS startups that leave the event excited about starting a new venture by encouraging them to enter in the New Venture Competition (NVC).

TEDx (Spring 2015) 

Last year (2012-2013), Michigan Tech held their first ever TEDx. Only 100 tickets were available and at $10 apiece, they sold out within minutes of going on sale. The event’s reach was limited, but provided a breath of energy to the campus. It got people talking.

MUBX wants to work with the University to send a delegate (advisor) to the TEDx conference in order to increase the ability of the conference to reach students across the university.  

TechMakers I (Late Fall 2014)

TechMakers will be an extension of the TechHacks concept planned and executed by the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) chapter at Michigan Tech. MUBX will support ACM and expand the event to include all majors and facilitate creation across campus.

Teams that move through the 3DS program and are interested in competing in the NVC will be encouraged to attend TechMakers I as an opportunity to deliver a prototype to the NVC judges. 

Strategy Two: The Opportunity to Learn

Overview: The greatest incentive a university can offer a student to encourage learning is credit towards graduation. By applying entrepreneurial and innovative courses to the existing curriculum structure, students will have an opportunity to grow their skill set within the I and E space.

By pulling together existing classes and proposing new ones, the LearnX branch will empower students to take the next step.

Lean Startup

A lean startup course has already been proposed by the NCIIA Pathways group and is being implemented during the Summer of 2014 as a pilot course. This course will hopefully grow in size and popularity as more students become interested in innovation and entrepreneurship.

Design for Organizations

Right now Michigan Tech doesn’t offer any comprehensive graphic design or marketing crash course. This (new) course will teach students the basics of the Adobe Creative Suite, as well as basic marketing psychology. The course instruction will center around working with real-world clients and applying the concepts to small businesses (start-ups) and student organizations.   

Technology Commercialization

As a continuation of a course already offered by Michigan Tech, this section will focus on how to transform research into a viable business. With a strong focus on customer voice and the business model canvas, this class will help researchers and innovators bridge the gap between idea and market success.

Looking Forward

While these classes mark a great start in empowering students to extend their development in innovation and entrepreneurship, they won’t be enough in the long term. As a part of LearnX, faculty and staff will be encouraged to offer one-credit seminars in areas they’re passionate about. This could range from an exploration of Google Glass to a series of lectures on programming competitively.

This collection of courses is designed to give students who think they may be interested in innovation or entrepreneurship the opportunity to grow, and dabble, in a formalized setting.

Strategy Three: Support the Culture

TechX

TechX is the culmination of the previous two strategies. Once a student is introduced to the concept of a startup through MUBX, and is equipped with the tools to make the startup successful though LearnX, they move onto TechX. TechX is a startup incubator modeled after Stanford’s StartX.

TechX will provide a variety of resources to fledgling startups in order to support their development.


The concept of TechX is still being developed.  It is being designed by student entrepreneurs, for students.

Space

Like most universities, space is in short supply at Michigan Tech. TechX will provide startups with premier workspace, featuring an open and flexible floor plan. This space will be designed to support a variety of team, and individual, work. A modern atmosphere and amenities will encourage the best startups to call TechX home.

Mentorship

A key component to the TechX program will be access to mentorship opportunities through the University. These mentors may include one-on-ones with successful leaders in the industry, or faculty who have technical experience in the startup’s field.

Each startup will be assigned a handpicked team of advisors who will provide advice on running a startup, leading teams, raising capital, and so on.

Funding

While no significant funding will be provided through the TechX program, small amounts of funds will be made available to teams in order to facilitate business growth. Funding may be allocated for travel, marketing materials, and business needs to help get the startup off the ground.

General Overview

More about Michigan Tech

David Shull - A University Innovation Fellow from Michigan Tech

About the University - Learn about Michigan Tech, including a landscape analysis