Changes

= Overview =

At the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee there has been a steady build in what we call the “Innovation Engine”. About four or five years ago, senior leadership at UWM set a plan in motion to ignite this innovation engine and since then it has been steadily burning while gaining momentum and attracting the masses. This movement began when the current Chancellor of UWM, Dr. Michael Lovell, then the Dean of the College of Engineering and Applied Sciences (CEAS), who began forging industry partnerships with such local companies as Ansys, General Electric Healthcare, Rockwell Automation, and Johnson Controls. As a result of these partnerships, new research opportunities began to flourish and the engineering faculty as a whole acted as first followers as they began collaborating in redesigned laboratories, state-of-the-art technical facilities, and through revolutionary classroom instruction. This garnered much interest and support throughout the school and the effects reverberate through the senior leadership and the then Dean of CEAS, now became the Chancellor of the university.

To further grow the innovation engine, individual faculty sprouted up throughout various departments, first through the business school, Dr. Kanti Prasad, then the Peck School of the Art with Dr. Kim Beckman, and the CEAS/ UWM Research Foundation through Brian Thompson. Dr. Prasad created through outside investments the Sheldon B Lubar, New Venture Business Plan Competition, where teams of students could develop business plans in competition to winning initial seed funds to start their companies. Dr. Beckman, developed an artistic showcase through multiple artistry-centric courses where students can develop ideas to showcase in a public “maker space” that the University owns. Lastly, Thompson organized, taught, and runs the Innovation and Commercialization class. It was at this time, the Innovation Engine began to appeal to a new market...students.

As participation in these innovative activities sky-rocketed, the need for more activities came apparent. The next was the Scheinfeld Entrepreneur Fund, which was another business plan competition out of the school of business. Additionally, momentum in the engineering and art schools began to rise and Dr. Ilya Avdeev and Dr. Nathaniel Stern professors from each school respectively, created a course, Product Realization, where students focus less on the business plans and more on developing their business prototypes by working with real industry partners. By this time, it has been about 2 or 3 years, and in 2012, the various groups on campus along with the University senior leadership initiated a movement to ensure success. They all came together under the faculty support of Brian Thompson, Ilya Avdeev, Nathaniel Stern, and Michael Hostad to create the campus wide inclusive Student Startup Challenge. This is the universities premiere student accelerator that focuses on developing student businesses while utilizing the lean startup methodologies and focuses on developing products and talking with customers. This competition not only solidified the innovation engine on campus but it also poured more gas on a pervading flame by allowing the entire university, students, and faculty alike to take some sort of ownership or affiliation with the Student Startup Challenge through candidates that work to develop prototypes, quick pitches, and develop business models from research or individuals’ ideas from all departments of the university. Today, the student startup challenge has grown from funding 3 teams to 8 teams and still more in this following year.

There are new classes each semester catering towards entrepreneurship and student participation is at an all time high with three widely active student organizations Collegiate Entrepreneur’s Organization (CEO), Student Entrepreneur Startup Organization (SESO), and American Marketing Association (AMA). Additionally, there are many smaller more niche student organizations that are entrepreneurially focused such as the video game design organization or Society of American Engineers (SAE). The UWM Research Foundation has expanded its entrepreneurial initiatives by hiring their first ever Entrepreneur-in-Residence and UWM has been named as a Pathway School with three Innovation Fellow candidates. The innovation engine does not stop here, UWM is determined to ensure ever lasting change by committing to collaboration and innovation by opening a brand new innovation campus about 15 miles west of the main campus that focuses on developing a world-class, public-private research park that spurs strong and enduring partnerships between academia and industry leading to new products, spin off businesses, workforce development and jobs in the fields of healthcare informatics, biomedical engineering, and advanced manufacturing & energy. I am proud to work with both Alex and Rob, as University Innovation Fellows Candidates to continue this event and progress it into the future with new and novel student initiatives

At the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee student innovation and entrepreneurship is a newly minted campus wide initiative with faculty, staff, and administrators. Within the campus various departments, organizations, and groups have emerged. From the departments, the Sheldon B. Lubar School of Business hosts the New Venture Business Plan Competition where students are mentored for one semester weekend classes devoted to key areas of interest when pursuing a new venture. At the end of this competition the students walk away with a business plan and presentation that have been judged by industry experts and potential seed funding for their new venture. Additionally, the Business School hosts the Scheinfeld Entrepreneur Fund, which is another business plan competition and they provide seed capital for promising student startups. The other major initiative is the campus wide, multidisciplinary, collaborative Student Startup Challenge, that helps students formulate teams in hopes of developing a prototype and launching a business. This challenge also provides seed capital to budding student entrepreneurs. Beyond the business competition, students are showcasing their involvement in entrepreneurship through three key student organizations: Collegiate Entrepreneurs Organization, American Marketing Association, and Student Entrepreneurship Startup Organization. Lastly, beyond the extracurricular activities students can always take courses focused on entrepreneurship such as Product Realization, Innovation and Commercialization, Entrepreneurship as well as many other courses.

<br/>'''Student Leadership Circle''':<br/>UIF: Alex Francis (President SESO, francis@uwm.edu); Rob Salamon (rob.a.salamon@gmail.com)<br/>AMA: Abby Williams (willi577@uwm.edu)<br/>CEO: Nick Anderson (President, ander644@uwm.edu)<br/>SESO: David Roehrich (Vice President, davidlr3@uwm.edu)<br/>SAE: Andrew Caron (President, ajcaron@uwm.edu)<br/>ASME: Alex Murray (President, ajmurray@uwm.edu)

At the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee innovation and entrepreneurship are encouraged within their faculty and staff. Faculty are urged to forge partnerships with local businesses to collaborate on research projects and develop new technologies. The UWM Research Foundation is an auxiliary resource for the university and the catalyst on campus for faculty innovation. The goals of the UWM-RF is to provide opportunities for faculty and staff to gain venture funding, develop intellectual property, form a business unit, and truly go out and create a business. The UWM Research Foundation has created a set of programs designed to bridge the gap between research and commercialization. These programs target a range of activities from early discovery through commercialization. The Research Fellows Program provides grants to graduate students over and above other types of support; these "kicker grants" help UWM faculty in key areas to attract and retain the best and brightest students who play a critical role in their research programs. The Catalyst Grant Program provides seed funding to research projects with high potential for return on investment - through commercialization or ability to attract funding from other sources. The objective with faculty entrepreneurs is also to promote corporate partnerships and startup companies in hopes that they can commercialize ideas as they reach later stages of maturity. Underlying all of these activities is the management of intellectual property - which including assessing ideas, protecting intellectual property through patents and copyrights as well as licensing activities.

'''Faculty Leadership Circle''':<br/>UWM Chancellor: Dr. Michael Lovell (mlovell@uwm.edu)<br/>College of Engineering and Applied Science: Dr. Ilya Avdeev (avdeev@uwm.edu)<br/>Peck School of the Arts: Dr. Kim Beckman (kbeckman@uwm.edu); Nathaniel Stern (sternn@uwm.edu)<br/>UWM Research Foundation: Brian Thompson (President, briant@uwmfdn.org); Carlton Reeves (Entrepreneur in Residence, reevescj@uwmfdn.org)<br/>UWM Director of Web and Mobile Strategy: Michael Hostad (mhostad@uwm.edu)

Two years ago, there were two graduate students, Mike Kirchner and Lia Coryell, that decided to start a student organization as part of their graduate coursework. After some research they found a national organization, Student Veterans of America (SVA) to become a local chapter of. Unfortunately, the first year was slow going and the two were trying to get their feet wet with the process of requesting funds, office space and answering the question- what are we going to do. At the time there were few people involved and even fewer new people that stuck around after attending one meeting. Those that did stay were dedicated to becoming a resource for veterans on campus and all took an active leadership role. Going into year two, SVA had a loose framework, a business plan and a lot of meetings- but no new members and no real purpose. As one of the founding officers, Rob Salamon had pushed to limit the formal meetings and to get more people actively engaged one way or another.

[[Category:Universities]]