2020 Cohort
17
edits
Changes
no edit summary
<span style="font-size:medium;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Arial; white-space: pre-wrap;">In order to bring in these students, we will host TEDx talks on the theme of innovation. It would include speakers who have demonstrated significant innovation within their respective fields to talk about what innovation means to them, what kind of process it involves, why it matters, etc. We would like to display different applications of innovation principles so students can see where these principles are relevant to their own interests. Since Swarthmore students tend to be passionate about social issues, we chose the following speaker types that would appeal to that demographic: social entrepreneurs, activists, musicians/artists, and sustainability technologists. With this project we hope to engage a wide variety of students - especially students who are not already involved with I&E at Swarthmore.</span></span>
<div><div>'''Strategic Priority #5.4 (Nancy 2019)'''</div><div><br/></div><div>From its endowment of over $2 billion (one of the highest endowments per student), Swarthmore College provides many funding opportunities. Students can apply for seed funding to design and implement their own social impact projects, as well as stipends to engage in internships and other entrepreneurial pursuits. However, we noticed that many students had never applied for any grants on campus due to factors such as being daunted by the application process, or not knowing which opportunities were available. </div><div><br/></div><div>We intend to organize grant-writing workshops to enable more students to access on-campus funding opportunities. There will be information sessions to consolidate and highlight various funding opportunities. Further hands-on grant-writing workshops will demystify the application process and assist students in actually writing a grant application. Grant writing is a transferable skill that will also benefit students applying for off-campus grants, or future scholarship applications for graduate school and beyond. We want more students to have the opportunity to access seed funding to add to the diversity of Swarthmore’s innovation and entrepreneurship landscape. <span style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-size: 11pt; font-weight: 700; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="background-color:#ffffe0;">Strategic Priority #6.1 (Edward 2020): Start Innovating Earlier</span></span></span> <span style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span><span style="font-size: 11pt; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: transparent; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">This year has been an important year for reflection and looking at trends. Although the term “social entrepreneurship” has become less vague for Swarthmore students idea since I was a Freshman, there is still work to be done. One of the problems we see is as follows: 1)It is difficult for Swarthmore students to focus on innovation in their earlier years due to their liberal arts requirements; and 2)Liberal arts students are facing a tougher job market that requires more experience of design thinking than ever before. 1) and 2), when together, present a growing problem that we intend to focus on. During this Stanford course, we have upgraded our design thinking skills, and by learning to prototype effectively we feel ready to take this problem on.</span></span></span><span id="docs-internal-guid-281eedc4-2bb1-fa54-797e-4c5171fee773"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: transparent; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">plan</span></span></span><span style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span><span style="font-size: 11pt; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: transparent; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></span></span> <span style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span><span style="font-size: 11pt; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: transparent; font-style: italic; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Project: Bringing the Liberal Arts ethic into Career Services</span></span><br/><span><span style="font-size: 11pt; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: transparent; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">We plan to launch a</span></span></span><span id="docs-internal-guid-281eedc4-2bb1-fa54-797e-4c5171fee773"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: transparent; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">student run</span><span style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">, new student-run set of resources as part of Swarthmore's Career Services department. We plan to employ students to find short, part-time job opportunities for every subject matter and to publish a weekly email blast. </span><span style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"></span></span></span><span style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span><span style="font-size: 11pt; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: transparent; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> We also plan to work with Swarthmore alumni to produce a private selection of shorter internships. This will allow Swarthmore students, particular newer Swarthmore students, to gain valuable skills and work experience whilst taking classes. When we talked to students about our idea, there was a lot of excitement - the career services department focuses on Juniors and Seniors, students told us, and they are really excited to learn critical skills (such as design thinking) and to lessen their anxiety about finding an internship/job after graduation.</span></span></span> </div></div>
<div><div>'''Strategic Priority #6.2 (Fiorenza 2020)'''</div><div><br/></div><div> A remote semester has students feeling detached from the innovation ecosystem at Swarthmore. Additionally, students are burnt out from zoom meetings and have little motivation to pursue virtual extracurricular activities. Therefore, we thought of creating a one-day virtual design thinking challenge in partnership with the Trico schools. Students would come together to address a challenge presented by the City of Philadelphia. The challenge would incentivize students to attend because it gives them an opportunity to connect with the innovation ecosystem in the Swarthmore area and upon completion, they will obtain tangible outcomes for their skill development. Successful participants would obtain a certificate of completion that demonstrates their understanding of the design thinking model and they would enter to win a gift card. Their experience would motivate them to apply design thinking to other challenges they face and would establish a connection to the innovation resources available at Swarthmore.</div></div>
= Related Links =