School:North Dakota State University

Student innovation and entrepreneurship

NDSU'sInnovation Week and Innovation Challenge competition are the university's most advertized and popular innovation events. I-Week and I-Challenge are part of a 3-month annual program focusing on student innovation teams, culminating in a public exhibition and panel judging of ideas. Students form teams of their own volition and work on ideas wholly their own; the only faculty involvement is a required faculty mentor, the precise role of whom is up to the individual team. Seminars, brown-bag lunch presentations, and bootcamps are peppered in through the duration of the program, allowing students to learn from industry and startup veterans alike. At the end of the judging week, a keynote speaker is brought in to network and speak to students. Last year,  Dr. Randal Pinkett, a nationally recognized entreprenuer, scholar, and author agreed to speak to students. The author of this wiki page was fortunate enough to meet Dr. Pinkett in person and will attest that the ability to do so is a huge boost to inspiration for student innovation. From the ideas, $20,000 is distributed to the victor teams, to be spent however the students wish.

NDSU and UND have a collaborative program to offer students of any major an 'Entrepreneurship Certificate.' This certificate is earned upon completion of five 2 & 300 level entreprenuership courses. As NDSU does not have a proper Entreprenuership department, the certificate is offered through the College of Business. In earning the certificate, students can expect to learn about intellectual property, management, marketing, accounting, design thinking, and venture capital- all with the twist of being specifically designed for providing students with the most important areas of those fields they'll need to thrive in a start-up.

It is worth noting that NDSU currently markets itself as a research university.. particularally, a "Student Driven, Land Grant, Research University." Nowhere in the mission statement, core values, or vision of the university will one find the words 'innovation' or 'entreprenuership' - not explicitly a bad thing, but perhaps something that can be remedied nonetheless! Students at NDSU are provided opportunities to perform undergraduate research, should they be proactive enough to seek out the correct resources. While this research is certainly innovative, the objective of much of the research is not explicitly to teach the students innovative or entreprenuial thinking- it is to perform research and generate data. How much the students learn to be innovative themselves in these environments depends on the student in question.

Amongst all of the student clubs and groups that perform innovative and entreprenurial activities, the author is most intimately familiar with a program known as the Bison Microventure. BµV is a program that brings students from multiple disciplines- primarily Engineering and Biosciences but not exclusive of other majors- together to solve problems and develop a product. The group, structured into 8 seperate teams of 2-3 students each, provides students the opportunity to lead and manage their own de facto mini-research teams, complete with all of the resource, expertiese, and intellectual property responsibilities that come with it. BµV has been succesful in generating multiple patent disclosures, numerous presentations at national events, and victories in local innovation competitions.

Faculty innovation and entrepreneurship

Aside from tenure and contractual requirements, innovation and entreprenuership is not, to the writer's knowledge, widely promoted to faculty. The writer wishes to note that there is a growing movement on campus within faculty and leadership that hopes to change the current mindset- a movement that will no doubt find immense value in the findings of the UI fellow program and the landscape canvas. This movement gained immense strength with a series of demonstrations of support, vocal and in action, by the University Present and Provost. NDSU's innovation atmosphere, I-Challenge, and select outstanding research teams have recently been mentioned consistently in the president's 'State of the University' addresses.

The writer is acquainted with two faculty members who are directly involved in startups at the NDSU Research & Technology park. These projects are not university driven- they're done on the faculty's own time.

Faculty are encouraged to document and file all intellectual property they generate, some of which is forwarded to the TTO and processed.

University technology transfer function

NDSU maintains a Technology Transfer office through theNDSU Research Foundation. Through the Research Foundation, faculty staff and students may file invention disclosures. These disclosures are reviewed by staff and, if determined patentable, the foundation and inventors will move forward on patenting the device, idea, or innovation- it is of note that the NDSU TTO does not discriminate or target to a specific type of innovation or inventive idea. The TTO will then attempt to license the idea- revenue from this is split between the TTO, NDSU, the inventor's department, and the inventors themselves. No particular priority is given to staff or students, invidual revenue share is based solely on contribution to the project. Inventors can expect to split ~30% of the total licensed revenue between themselves.

In the event the TTO rejects the idea, NDSU releases ownership of the intellectual property to the inventors who are free to file patents on their own and thus own full share.

The NDSU TTO, to the knowledge of the UI fellow penning this, has not made any particular student-aware effort to promote the development of intellectual property on campus. It is not yet as proactive as certain other programs around the country- the inventors are expected to come to the TTO, not the other way around.

University-Industry collaboration

All engineering majors complete what is known as a 'capstone' or senior design project. This project is commonly backed financially by a local industry presence in the aim of solving a particular problem. Students form small group teams and are given two semesters to prepare and present a solution to the problem as best they can. The process is assisted by regular interaction (personal and digital) with the host company as well as reporting to the student's faculty capstone mentor. It is of note that while the program does not explicitly require an innovative solution to the given problem, the use of students to provide a new, fresh way of thinking is one of the value-added services of the program for the host company.

Occasionally, students will form capstone groups with the intent to develop and market their own project. In this case, funding and resources will be limited only to donations and grants that the students and mentor can acquire from donor companies and grant programs- generally a tight budget. NDSU's engineering program is not structured to prepare students to start and run their own firms and thus, while not completely unheard of, this practice is fairly uncommon.

The College of Business offers a program known as 'Student Consulting Teams.' These teams offer small business in particular the opportunity to receive the aid of students to assist and council them in their journey- the students, of course, receive experience and knowledge in return. Students are chosen by application and are not automatically assigned to a team. Instead, the student is contacted when a project that suits their experience, interest, and expertise becomes available. Through this method, assigning students with irrelevant knowledge or lack of interest can be midigated. While this program is not explicitly innovative or entreprenurial in nature, it does provide valuable assistance to those looking to engage in those activities in the form of expertise they may not otherwise possess.

Regional and local economic development efforts

InnovateND, put on by the North Dakota Department of Commerce, is the largest and most public program for assisting in economic development via startups and innovation- it says so right in the name. The purpose of InnovateND is to provide a full kit of assistance to an idea- planning, investing, market research, etc... all of this is assisted and counciled by connections through InnovateND. It is, of course, still up to the entreprenuer to do the grunt work. In an effort to increase the utility and usefulnes of the program, InnovateND recently made a key change to their program, shifting from a 'venture competition' to an educational and entreprenurial experience.

Start-up Weekend, a 72 hour event focused on rapid creation, maturation, and launching of business concepts. It targeted primarily at application/service development, as 'engineered' ideas generally require far more time and work to become market-viable.

The Greater Fargo Moorhead Economic Development Corporation focuses on the 50,000ft view of developing Fargo/Moorhead as a whole. While it may not get involved in nurturing any specific business, what it does do is work to provide a vibrant and growing environment ripe for business creation and expansion. While this may not sound quite as flashy to an entreprenuer-to-be, it is nonetheless extremely important to ensure startups have the ability to survive.

Other

Take-Away message: NDSU and Fargo Moorhead have yet to get huge innovation momentum going, but the environment, people, and resources are there to make it happen in the near future.