Difference between revisions of "Priorities:Pennsylvania State University Student Priorities"
| Line 25: | Line 25: | ||
*Description: We want to take stories from inspirational entreprenuerial alumni, and share them with exisiting students in an easily accesible format. We hope that by showing students what their predeccesors have accomplished, it may inspire them to take a leap of faith in to entreprenuership. We will dispurse this information through the above marketing channels. | *Description: We want to take stories from inspirational entreprenuerial alumni, and share them with exisiting students in an easily accesible format. We hope that by showing students what their predeccesors have accomplished, it may inspire them to take a leap of faith in to entreprenuership. We will dispurse this information through the above marketing channels. | ||
| − | = Strategy #2: | + | = Strategy #2 Culture: <br/> = |
Following are an array of strategies that will fully address Gap #2 over a 2-3 year period: | Following are an array of strategies that will fully address Gap #2 over a 2-3 year period: | ||
Revision as of 02:54, 18 October 2019
Contents
Overview
Penn State offers many Innovation and Entrepreneurship resources varying from classes, to organizations to attaining funding for entrepreneurial activities. Its biggest contributor of growth has been the "Invent Penn State" initiative, started in 2015. It was a pet-project of the current President, Eric Barron, and has lead to buildup of entreprenuerial resources in nearly every facet of Penn State life. There are over 150 classes offered in the varying areas of entrepreneurship. There are 5 minors offered in the umbrella topic of entrepreneurship, as well as "Launchboxes" (innovation hubs/incubators) at every campus in the ecosystem. Lots of the growth has been spurred on by various student organizations such as Innoblue (the primary entreprenuership club on campus), HackPSU (organizes by yearly hackathons with corporate sponsors), Enactus (a project-based social entreprenuership club), and Happy Valley Capital (a VC interest club). Penn State also has pitch competitions in nearly every academic discipline for startup ideas. Lastly, Penn State has a large industrial park, dubbed "Innovation Park", for local and university startups to operate.
Although Penn State has done a great job in building up these opportunities, there are still some ways we believe we can improve. We would like to provide more inspiration for students to become entrepreneurs, provide a greater culture of entreprenuership, and increase the visibility of suitable entry points in to the community. We will carry out these goals by increasing VC presence, providing entry information to freshmen, and elevating successful entreprenuerial alumni.
Strategy #1: Inspiring Students to Take Part
Following are an array of strategies that will fully address Gap #1 over a 2-3 year period:
Step #1: Exploring New Marketing Channels for Content
- Description: The current Invent Penn State marketing channels are good at keeping students engaged, however we think that we need different outreach channels if we truly want to make our ideas a success and grow the ecosystem as whole.
- Some ideas:
- Postering Campaign (our poster prototypes worked well)
- Pitching at Student Organizations
- Banners?
- Pushing students to join the existing mailing list
- Innoblue Website
Step #2: Alumni Centered Content
- Description: We want to take stories from inspirational entreprenuerial alumni, and share them with exisiting students in an easily accesible format. We hope that by showing students what their predeccesors have accomplished, it may inspire them to take a leap of faith in to entreprenuership. We will dispurse this information through the above marketing channels.
Strategy #2 Culture:
Following are an array of strategies that will fully address Gap #2 over a 2-3 year period:
Tactic #1: Building Two Innovation Spaces
- Description: By building two innovation spaces to foster two different type of businesses, students will want to venture more into entrepreneurship. For a service based business, the innovation space should be built in the business school. For a product based business, the innovation space should be built in the engineering or IST school. The product based innovation space should include woodwork and manufacturing machinery.
- Team Leader:: TBD
- Milestones:
- Talk to department heads/president of university 12/13
- Get student, faculty and alumni support 3/14
- Find donors 6/14
- Construct a plan with heads of the university 10/14
Tactic #2: Local Career Fair
- Description: Hold a career fair for local businesses and students interested in working during school. This allows students to interact with entrepreneurs during the school year.
- Team Leader:: Mridul Bhandari
- Milestones:
- Get businesses involved 9/13
- Inform students 10/13
- Test run 11/13
- Create a sustainable plan 1/14
Tactic #3: Hosting Start-up/Entrepreneurial Section at Penn State's Career Fair
- Description: Penn State invites over 500 companies to recruit during the career fair, and almost none of them are small companies. Many Penn State students want to do something entrepreneurial but lack experience. By hosting a startup section, or an entrepreneurial section during the career fair, students will be able to talk to companies that they want to work for. This allows them a chance to enhance their entrepreneurial skill while ganing experience.
- Team Leader: Mridul Bhandari
- Milestones:
- Talk to companies to gage interest 10/13
- Talk to career fair administration 11/13
- Talk to Engineering and IST department heads for a push to career fair administration 12/13
- Contact startups and entrepreneurship companies 2/13
- Hold a test run 3/13
- Construct sustainable plan 5/13
Impact
