School:University of Puerto Rico - Mayaguez

Overview

The University of Puerto Rico, Mayaguez Campus (UPRM) is located in the city of Mayaguez, Puerto Rico. It was established on September 23, 1911. UPRM is the second-largest university campus of the University of Puerto Rico system.

Consists of four major colleges: Agricultural Sciences, Arts and Sciences, Business Administration and Engineering.  Offers over 50 bachelor's programs, more than 25 master's programs and 5 doctoral's programs. There are around 12,000 students enrolled. The Mayaguez Campus is ranked number 1 in the Caribbean. 

Promoting student innovation and entrepreneurship:

UPRM E-Ship is the umbrella for all the efforts related to innovation and entrepreneurship. This project has the objective to link all the champions and initiatives in order to create a bigger impact. In addition, and also composing the E-ship Network, Mayaguez counts with a variety of Innovation and Entrepreneurship opportunities with internal champions and external collaborators:

Courses

• New Venture Design Experience
• Design Thinking
• Consumer Behavior
• Product Design
• Technology Based Entrepreneurship
• Engineering Capstone
• Introduction to Business Development
• Creativity and Innovation
• New Business Development
• Creative Design
• Tools and Toys
• Game Theory
• Engineering Design Projects
• Capstone
• Research
• Special Projects

Activities

• TEDxUPRM
• Elicit Innovation
• VR Hackathon
• Arduino Day
• HackPR
• Hacker Socials
• Expo Ideas
• Capstone Exhibition
• H3
• Justas Empresariales
• Icorps PR
• Weekend Design Challenge
• Job Fair
• Startup Fair
• W2Socials

Spaces

• Business Center
• Starting Point Makerspace
• Office of Intellectual Property and Technology Transfer
• Model Factory
• Research and Development Center
• Vitech
• Parallel 18

Associations

• Association of Programmers Entrepreneurs
• Association for Computing Machinery
• HackPR
• Enactus UPRM
• Idea Platform (Achieve-Elicit-AppCreatrs-Empower3D-Visionary-WearTech)
• Catalyst

Encouraging faculty innovation and entrepreneurship:

There is very little encouragement for the faculty to engage in innovation and entrepreneurship. Even though research commercialization exists, the process is tedious and burecrautic. Much of the faculty does not know about the research commercialization, and the rest does not attempt it due to its difficult and time consuming nature. Faculty that works in innovation and entrepreneurship is mostly self-driven, or it is an important part of the courses they are giving, which tends to be the case within the Business Administration Departement. 

The Chancellor of our University has stated multiple times that “I&E is one of his most important priorities on campus”. However, changing decades of institutional culture is not something that happens in a year. Institutional policies sometimes impede faculty innovation and entrepreneurship through research. An example of these policies are that if a professor chooses to give a selected number of hours of class, say 12hrs a week, institutional policies don’t encourage him to do research. Likewise, those professors that do develop research possess the entrepreneurship mindset in the sense that they search for funding outside the university, but whether they spin-out and commercialize their projects is still in construction. In the other hand, some professors are not aware of the commercialization potential of their projects because they have not been exposed enough to know the indicated processes. In order to change the impact that the disorientation can cause, preparation and training for professors that have research projects in every faculty should be a high priority.

Despite the challenges, the University of Puerto Rico- Mayaguez has a group of champions in the faculty that keeps growing. This group has been submitting proposals for courses, programs, researches, among other successful initiatives that promote I&E. This group is the spark that will illuminate other professors and administrators to keep the momentum.

Actively supporting the university technology transfer function:

The Unviersity of Puerto Rico does count with an Intellectual Property and Tech Transfer Office. Additionally, the office staff in Mayaguez is very much in tune with the innovation and entrepreneurship ecosystem and are avid supporters and champions within the E-Ship Network. The University also counts with a Center for Patents & Trademarks.

Facilitating university-industry collaboration:

Currently, the largest University-Industry collaboration event is the Job Fair. During the Job Fair, industries across the world come to UPRM in order to recruit students for internships, coops, or full-time positions. However, the Job Fair is also the best way for student run organizations to create partnerships with these industries. Most student organizations count with one or more sponsorships that are provided by recurring companies that come to Mayaguez to recruit. These sponsorhips can also fund labs and research projects. Another university-industry collaboration are the Capstone projects. In these projects, graduating engineering students are sent to an industry to solve a design problem which is assigned to them. The engineering student has to solve the industrial problem using all the knowledge aquired from their undergraduate studies and write a mini thesis in order to succesfully complete the course. 

Engaging with regional and local economic development efforts:

Entities such as INprende, Guayacan, EntrePrize, and Parallel 18 are constantly visiting Mayaguez in college tours in order to see what the students of UPRM are up to in terms of entreprenuership and innovation, and to find local talents and startups to fund. Parallel 18 is a startup incubator and accelarator belonging to the Puerto Rico Science and Research Fund which finds 18 startups from Puerto Rico and the world to fund and mentor for a year. Parallel 18 has great connections with UPRM and the E-ship Network, and is very invested in the students and their ideas. There have been 3 startups that have entered Parallel 18 that have come directly from Mayaguez, and there are many students that work on their offices as interns. Another important entity is Vitech, a local startup accelerator which has its offices near campus. The Vitech offices include a space that is awarded to startups that come from the UPRM, even if the students are still studying. 

University Innovation Fellows Candidates 2017

1. Alejandro Aponte
2. Jaran Arroyo
3. Rolando Cruz
4. Alex Herrero

University Innovation Fellows Candidates 2015

1. Jonathan Díaz Sepulveda
2. Angelisse_Ramos
3. Jahannie_Torres
4. Rodolfo_Romañach
5. Bryan_Muñoz
6. Emmanuel Oquendo-Rosa

Related Links

Student Priorities

http://www.uprm.edu/

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