Priorities:Washington University in St. Louis Student Priorities

Overview

Washington University in St. Louis sits at the heart of what is said to be the next "Silicon Valley". St. Louis was ranked as the number 1 emerging startup city in America by Popular Mechanics.  Sparked by Jim McKelvey, a Washington University alumni and the inventor of Square, St. Louis has drawn the attention of venture capitalists around America. Washington University has ridden this entrepreneurship wave and has exponentially expanded entrepreneurial education and opportunities for its students. Students in return have sparked many successful start ups such as IdeaLabs and BetaVersity, founded by a Washington University University Innovation Fellow, Blake Margraff.

As resources expand and experimental programs are tested by the administration, an increasing number of undergraduates are unaware of such opportunities. In contrast, entrepreneurial activity at the graduate level has grown dramatically in response to these opportunites. Undergraduates also don't have the opportunity to learn about entrepreneurship academically until they are almost graduates. 2015 University Innovation Fellows have a perfect opportunity to capitalize on this opportunity by acting as the main focal point for undergraduate entrepreneurship, empowering undergraduates to interact with faculty, and utilizing the powerful undergraduate career-driven culture.

The following are our student priorities to acheive this goal:

1. Creating a freshman orientation program
2. Creating a campus resources web portal
3. Advertising and generating traffic at Washington University's Co-Lab
4. Creating more opportunities for students to investigate the St. Louis startup scene

Strategic Priorities

Creating a Freshman Orientation Program

Insert Description Here

Tactic	Milestone Date

Creating a Campus Resources Webportal

After interviewing many faculty and deans around campus, it was clear the awareness of campus resources across different disciplines was severely lacking. Even within each school (engineering, business, etc.) knowledge of prototyping resources such as 3D printers, modeling software, and machine work shops was inconsistent across many students and faculty. To solve this problem, we are envisioning a web portal documenting campus resource such as 3D printers, milling machines, biosafety hoods, etc. For example, a student could query for 3D printers and get several hits in the schools of engineering and art. Each resource will have the contact name of the person managing that resource for student entrepreneurs. 

Tactic	Milestone Date
Propose idea to deans of engineering and entrepreneurship already invested in promoting entrepreneurship. We would determine the logistics of how to create and manage this web portal and next steps.	2/01/15
Meet with WashU's Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) and propose the project with backing from administration. We could offer compensatory pay.	3/01/15
Pilot the webportal in the School of Engineering and monitor website traffic and advertise it	4/01/15
Expand the webportal to the Sam Fox School of Art and monitor website traffic	8/01/15
Expand the webportal to the School of Arts and Sciences	10/01/15

Advertising and Generating Traffic at Washington University's Co-Lab

Insert description here

Tactic	Milestone Date

Creating More Opportunities for Students to Investigate the St. Louis Startup Scene

Insert description here

Tactic	Milestone Date

 Here we need to put 4-5 priorities and our project ideas. 

Huy's Prority to Increase Entrepreneurship at Washington University in St. Louis:

I want to address the “learn” category of Washington University’s landscape canvas. In particular, I want to create a Start-up weekend just for undergraduates to give students the opportunity to explore entrepreneurship and their own ideas. Many undergraduates interested in participating in entrepreneurship are intimidated by more experienced graduate level entrepreneurs or industry veterans. I seek to solve this problem by creating a program similar to the Start-Up studio hosted by James Madison University’s Society of Entrepreneurs. The setup of such a program would involve teams that require representation from all undergraduate schools (ie. business, engineering, arts, and sciences). These teams will work to identify and solve a problem on Washington University’s campus (ie. parking, scheduling classes, housing, etc.) In this way, students can demonstrate/learn interdisciplinary collaboration skills, see a direct impact of their innovation in their daily lives, and become inspired to become more entrepreneurially involved. Judges can be recruited from industry to judge the final product ideas, mentor, or provide seed funding. This can also be a hiring opportunity for students because industry values entrepreneurial/creative thinking. I plant to use our new campus wide incubator space that is open to students of all majors.

Below are my outlined steps to carryout this plan of action: