Priorities:Universidad de los Andes Student Priorities

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Project Pitch Video - Fall '17

LINK TO VIDEO

Strategy #1: Helping the students become aware of the I&E opportunities available to them

Centralize all I&E opportunities and offers in the same place within the university

At Uniandes, students tends to recall one or two of the initiatives in the I&E ecosystem, but they don’t know what they do and where to access the resource. Additionally, a variety of these extracurricular clubs many times do the same things, confusing the students. By merging and organizing these clubs, we could increase the impact of the circles and facilitatethe location of information or support for students in terms of the I&E ecosystem.

Tactics + Milestones:

1. Proposal of a restructuration of the I&E ecosystem, favoring alliances, mergers, and reorganization.
2. Facilitate access to mentoring in each faculty
3. I&E Uniandes with ONE website and as a unique source of information
4. Develop activities that help provide access to networking

Create Ideation spaces with the people that live in the surroundings of the university

Uniandes is located in what used to be a humble neighborhood with a high level of poverty. Nowadays, the region has evolved into a more secure and developed one, yet there is still area for improvement. Proyecto Fenicia is an Uniandes initiative where the institution seeks to involve the neighborhood inhabitants in an effort to generate positive impact on the with the University’s growth. Our idea was to open and generate spaces where neighbors share their problems and students have ideation spaces to manage and solve hands-on projects with a positive impact on the Uniandes immediate surroundings, which really puts the project in the Colombian context, in the hope to help the development of great projects that can be replicated.

Tactics + Milestones:

1. Present the idea of a Fenicia Ideation center to the directives and to the neighborhood community
2. Encourage students to be a part of the initiatives in their spare time (could eventually become an alternative instead of a thesis project or of participating as a TA in an academic investigation)
3. Develop a system of positive incentives that can catalyzes the participation and learning of students in the Fenicia Ideation Space, such as credits or bonuses for solving specific problems for the community.
4. Involve the Fenicia Ideation Space in courses where learning will be triggered by working with the community and where it will have a positive impact on the neighbors

Create interdepartment I&E competitions

At Uniandes, At Los Andes, virtually every course that incorporates I&E into the formal learning curriculum is either of the Business, Design or Engineering department. Additionally, most competitions are for one or two departments, and creating interdepartment I&E competitions will allow the creation of synergies and will encourage the interchange of ideas and knowledge between students and will raise the viability of projects by questioning and challenging their assumptions.

Tactics + Milestones:

1. Identification and involvement of I&E-prone teachers and courses in each department
2. Create an inter-Disciplinary Teacher Council in order to organize and involve external groups and actors in the competition’s challenge (generate a challenge that exists in real-life)
3. Ask all departments and the Dean of Students to spread the information to all students and offer incentives in order to engage them
4. Facilitate the inscription of lone students who don’t know anyone in other careers by providing channels for them to meet others.
5. Hold first competitions and then showcase alumni’s work in I&E to get students from all majors motivated and in sync with I&E.

Increase the amount of activities surrounding the I&E ecosystem

At Uniandes, there are not many activities about I&E that really engage students with the participation circles, as students generally approach them with their own startups and business ideas. By increasing the amount of activities surrounding the I&E ecosystem, students will become more engaged and will learn about such ecosystem. Additionally, they will understand how it works and where to find information about the participation circles.

Tactics + Milestones:

1. With the unification and organization of the participation circles, create better communication channels for the students
2. Interview and interact with students to understand which types of activities would attract them to participate (competitions, summits, challenges, etc.)
3. Begin communicating with all the faculties and start organizing and offering spaces and activities about I&E more frequently. 

Strategy #2: Help student's projects pass from experiment and discover stages into pursue and spinout

Bring investors from different industries to “Semana de la innovación” (Innovation week)

During “Semana de la innovación” in the university students present their startups and the projects they developed during the semester to other students. Unfortunately the majority of these projects stay in an initial phase and do not transcend to become a real venture due to the lack of support and funding. We want to bring investors that could be interested in these opportunities and will offer funding and support for students to build and take forward their venture.

Tactics + Milestones:

1. Generate alliances with investors of different industries
2. Give easy access to people from outside the university to the innovation week fair
3. Publicize the week of innovation outside of the university
4. Talk to the different organizations dedicated to I&E in the university to get involved and help students pursue their idea. 

Have a class open for students in every faculty where students will have to go to the real world and test their startup ideas.

The courses offered by the university  that incorporate I&E into the formal learning curriculum is either of the Business, Design or Engineering department but currently it does not exist a course open for every student in the university that incorporates I&E.  The idea will be to open an elective course that helps entrepreneurs develop and test their idea in the real world. The course will be open for everyone. We think if students have some sort of orientation and support from experts there is a higher probability that the projects will succeed or at least get to the phase of pursue or spin out.

Tactics + Milestones:

1. Present the idea of a new course elective course to the directives
   
2. Design the curriculum of the course with the help of the business faculty
   
3. List potential teachers that could lead the course
   
4. Conduct surveys to students of different faculties as to whether they would be interested in the course
   
5. Conduct surveys to students of different faculties to know the amount of students that currently have a startup or are in the process of developing one. 

 

Create design thinking workshops that involve students in innovating courses in order to really address their needs and tastes

Currently the university is working on reforming some of the courses including innovative forms of education and training teachers in innovation in education. Although this effort has been helpful and successful in some courses,  it is common that the ideas teachers have and think will improve the course are not attractive for students. We think it is different when adults ideate for students than when the students are involved in the process of innovation. By creating spaces in which teachers and students can work and think together in innovative solutions and changes for the courses, the needs and tastes of students will be really address and the changes in the courses could be more successful.

Tactics + Milestones:

1. Talk to Conecta-TE to understand the process and workshops they develop to innovate in courses.
   
2. Propose workshops of design thinking with teachers, students and teacher assistants.
   
3. Encourage students to be a part of the initiatives in their spare time,
   
4. Encourage both students and faculty to try to grasp a deeper understanding of all the benefits that can be derived from innovating in their courses.

Strategy #3: Encourage a more complete exposure to I&E initiatives (all faculties, careers, and stages of the career)

Create a common brand that involves all of the supporting activities and entities through a cluster where all this mini-organizations are part of a coordinated cluster that can help the entrepreneurs in different stages. 

Tactics + Milestones:

1. Talk with all of the relevant organizations that support the I&E ecosystem in the university.  
2. Measure the impact each of the different organizations (Empreandes, Empreandinos, WIB, Centro de Emprendimiento, Innovandes) are having to the entrepreneurs in the university acting like one.

3. Analyze how much startups are created every year