Priorities:Berea College Student Priorities

Berea College Pitch Video

Strategy#1  Expose students to Innovation and Entrepreneurship

Tactics#1.1 UIFresh

Description: Through the #UIFresh initiative we plan to introduce the entrepreneurial mindset to the freshmen class. We would arrange a ‘Creativity & Innovation Orientation Workshop’ for the entire incoming class to discover the breadth of innovation in the liberal arts and to think creatively about potential opportunities in the future. For example: “Innovation Tours” to expose students to makerspaces and resources.

Milestones:

• Talk to Freshmen Orientation Manager, and Dean (March 2016)

• Funding and logistic planning (May 2016)

• Train the orientation team with effective UIFresh activities (August 2016)

• Execute the I&E Orientation activities. (August 2016)

Tactics#1.2 Solve-A-Problem Saturdays

Description: Solve-A-Problem Saturdays will be a bi-weekly one-hour long ideation workshop series for interdisciplinary students. It is designed to be an open platform for students to discuss and solve problems as well as be empowered with a solution-oriented mindset. The activities of the workshop include discussing a problem, brainstorming solutions and formulating a solution within a small team.

Milestones:

• Create Low-Resolution Prototype reaching 20 students (Fall 2016 - beginning)

• Evaluate the success and failure of the workshop and review feedback from participants to revise the plan of the workshop (Fall 2016 - mid)

• Recruit Workshop Leaders and Facilitators (Fall 2016 -mid)

• Launch Solve-A-Problem Saturday series and reach 100 students (Spring 2017 onwards)

Tactics#1.3 A Date With Design Thinking

Description: A Date With Design Thinking will be a quarterly one-hour long design thinking workshop series for interdisciplinary students. It is intended to familiarize and engage students with the concept of design thinking through a fun series of activities. This workshop is designed to not only expand I&E to a bigger audience on campus but to also engage them in addressing existing problems on campus.

Milestones:

• Launch A Date With Design Thinking series with a small scale workshop reaching 20 students (Spring 2016 - completed)

• Evaluate the success and failure of the workshop and review feedback of participants to revise the plan of the workshop (Spring 2016)

• Collaborate with different departments such as Dining Services, Café, Sustainability Department, TAD and Computer Science to address problems within the department and design workshops centered towards the issues discussed (Fall 2016)

• Continue series by organizing two workshops per semester (Fall 2017)

Strategy#2 Create Opportunities for students to learn and experiment

Tactics# 2.1 PopUp Classes

Description: PopUp Classes is intended to be short and elective classes and workshops to provide curious students, innovators, problem-solvers and lifetime learnerswith vital soft skills in their toolbox. It is inspired by the interest and need of various innovative, entrepreneurial and practical skills such as blogging and web designing but a lack offlexible and informal environment to teach them in a brief time.

Milestones:

• Reach out to all clubs & organizations on campus to identify what their community is interested to learn (Mar 15, 2016)

• Develop a format or structure for PopUp Classes (Mar 30, 2016)

• Identify a list of students/faculty who would be interested in conducting the PopUps (Apr 10, 2016)

• Prototype first PopUp (April 15, 2016)

• Develop a strategy to continue offering PopUps once every two weeks ( May 10, 2016)

Tactics# 2.2 Open Lab Days

Description: Open Lab Days are weekends, where the labs in the Physics and TAD departments (Technology and Applied Design Department) will be open at specific times Students would be given the chance to participate in laboratories on weekends such as  the Physics machine shop with the help of collaboration between the Society of Physics Students and Physics department. Similar collaborations would take place between the Tech club and the Technology department. This will help students from various departments to become more creative with their prototypes which will also encourage them to pursue STEM careers.

Milestones:

• Initiative to be discussed with Chairs of Physics, Chemistry, TAD department and Laboratory Assistants (March 2016)

• Create Open lab Schedules that accommodates TA’s presence (May 2016)

• Marketing to encourage student participation (August 2016)

Strategy#3 Provide opportunities for students to test new ideas

Tactics#3.1 Idea Bounce

Description: Berea Innovation Studio (BIS)  hosts Idea Bounce every semester. Students from different majors participate in an idea pitch competition. Prior to the actual event, participants attend an hour workshop where they are trained to develop their idea and pitch. This competition was started by last year’s UIFs hunting for creativity and problem-solving skills across campus.    

Milestones:

• Recruit Judges and Sponsors for the competition (third week of each semester)

• Open submission for initial ideas and thoughts (fourth week of each semester)

• Evaluate the submitted ideas and provide feedback to the selected applicants (sixth week of each semester)

• Coach the applicants: How to pitch ideas in 2 minutes (seventh week of each semester)

• Hold Idea Bounce (eighth week of each semester)

Tactics#3.2 Idea State U

Description: Idea State U is a Kentucky statewide business competition to encourage innovation and entrepreneurship by rewarding student teams from the Commonwealth’s colleges and universities,  Entrepreneurship for the Public Good (EPG) program sponsors selected Berea College students to participate in this state idea competition. Students are coached by the director of EPG and guided throughout the whole process. One of the major achievements of past Berea college applicants was last year when a team of two freshman and one sophomore won the third place beating MBA students. This achievement is and will always be an inspiration and empowerment.

Milestones:

• Start with identifying the problems and recognizing opportunities (early February)

• Finalize Teams (mid-February)

• Organize weekly training sessions with Faculty Sponsor (mid-February - mid-March)

• Conduct customer discovery in order to gain empathy and develop business idea and plan (mid-February - mid-March)

• Participate in Idea State U (end of March)

• Winners follow up with the angel investors (early April)

Tactics#3.3 StartUp Weekend Berea (New)

Description: Berea Innovation Studio (BIS), in collaboration with Entrepreneurship for the Public Good (EPG) program, will launch StartUp Weekend Berea during the spring semester. It will be an interdisciplinary event, where participants will work in teams to come up with creative solutions to challenging real-world problems, identified by students. They will develop sustainable Business Models surrounding the solution. A series of workshops will be made available for students to learn and deepen their skills. The event will be gamified to make it also a fun activity.

Milestones:

• Identity interested facilitators and meet to finalize event date (Sep 2, 2016)

• Design the workshop and action plan (Sep 15, 2016)

• Prototype Startup Weekend Berea Model (Oct 15, 2016)

• Identify organizations and request for funding (Oct 30, 2016)

• Reach out to facilitators to lead different workshops (Oct 30, 2016)

• Devise a marketing campaign (Nov 10, 2016)

Strategy#4 Inspire students to pursue I&E

Tactics#4.1 Inspirational Talks

Description: To encourage students to pursue entrepreneurship we plan to hold TEDxBerea starting the Fall 2016 term. This will create excitement amongst students to learn the value of the entrepreneurial mindset while helping them understand the importance of failure, design thinking and prototyping.

Milestones:

• Talk to Dean/President to get permission (April 2016)

• TEDxBerea license application (April 2016)

• Pick the event type and brainstorm ideas for the program (May 2016)

• Logistic planning and fund allocation (June 2016)

• Choose a tentative date for the event (July 2016)

• Invite speakers (July 2016)

• Branding and marketing (August - September 2016)

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