Priorities:California State University of Fullerton Student Priorities

Strategy One:Create an organization called Student Innovation Collective (SINC) that brings together multidisciplinary departments to work on project oriented activities

MISSION AND VISION

The goal of this organization is to bring together different departments in campus to work on industry level projects in the collegiate level. Students from different disciplines collaborating on projects promotes innovation and creativity. This will allow students to become well-rounded individuals. The organization’s goal is to mold students into T-Shaped Individuals. These are individuals who are well-versed in their own disciplines but also have the ability to collaborate and communicate with other disciplines. Having these skills will give the students the advantage in the workplace and ultimately close the school-industry divide.

PLAN

Currently the organization will focus on engineering design projects. The mechanical engineering department has design projects where they build or update projects like cars, drones or rockets. They usually consist of engineering students with different skillsets that can contribute to the project. The whole design project is treated like a business where students need to market their product, raise funds and understand their finances. This is where a multi-disciplinary team comes in. The organization will connect students to these engineering design projects to help them with their “business”. While we are planning to focus solely on business and engineering students for now, the organization will expand to include computer science, film, arts, graphics design and other kinds of majors to have an inclusive and a truly multidisciplinary team.

KEY METRICS

• Number of business students in an engineering team
• Number of students who joined the engineering team through the organization
• Number of other students from different departments in an engineering team
• Success rate or ranking of engineering team in their final competition with a multidisciplinary team

Related Links:

http://business.fullerton.edu/Center/Entrepreneurship/#Default

http://www.dailytitan.com/2014/03/titan-mechanical-engineers-hope-to-build-uav-for-the-future/

http://ecs.fullerton.edu/~titanuav/

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'Strategy Two:'Create a pop up incubator/makerspace in campus

MISSION AND VISION

There is no space where students can collaborate on different projects. While there is the Student Union and the library, there is no dedicated space where students have all the tools and resources that they would need to rapidly prototype ideas. This is where a makerspace will be useful for students. It will be a place where students such as engineers and business students can come together to work on solving problems that they have identified within their environment. The makerspace would be a place to define problems, brainstorm ideas, prototype, test and iterate when necessary. When students develop ideas that are worth taking to the market, they can transition to the school’s own incubator.

PLAN

A makerspace is very difficult to implement in a public university. That is to say it is not impossible. There will be key steps that will lead to a successful implementation of makerspace. They are listed below:

1. Create a list of key stakeholders in campus
2. Provide case studies of makerspaces outside of campus
3. Provide testimonials of students who needs a makerspace
4. Provide a signed petition of more than 1000 students who wants a makerspace
5. Provide a report on successful makerspaces around the area
6. Create a document on the benefits of a makerspace for the school
7. Create a prototype of the makerspace to show student interest

KEY METRICS

• Students developing and working on projects
• Students successfully creating a business
• Students transitioning to the incubator
• Students using the makerspace
  

Strategy Three: Implementation of an Innovation Center keeping in mind Design Thinking

The objective of this project is to spread awareness about entrepreneurship and innovation within the University of Fullerton. The innovation center will be high-tech space in which students from different majors will have the opportunity to collaborate and pitch projects they would like to work on. Every semester, there will be one project that will be chosen, and within the course of the semester, that project will become tangible. The project can range in size, but the focus will be creating an object or application that solves a problem within the community or within least developed countries. The innovation center will follow the model of design thinking.Through our research, we have found that the ideal location for the innovation center, would be a place that is located at the center of our campus. We have found that students often feel intimidated to go to departments that they are not familiar with.

Design Thinking Process Stages:

1.Define

In this stage students will answer the following questions:

What issues are you trying to solve?

Who is your target audience ?

How can this project be successful?

2.Research

Students will do field work to gather data, gather history of the problem at hand, check if there is someone trying to implement something similar,determine the supporters of this project ( i.e department, investors, community partners) and communicate withthe end user.

3.Ideation

Determine needs and motivations of the end user and brainstorm many ideas that can possibly solve the problem at hand

4.Prototype

Create multiple drafts, seek feedback from a diverse group of people, present a selection of ideas to the client, create and present actual working prototype

5.Choose

Review the objective and choose amongst alternatives

6. Implement

Plan, Assign, Execute

7. Learn

Gather feedback from the consumer,Determine if the solution met its goals, Discuss what could be improved, Measure success, and collect data.