Priorities:James Madison University Student Priorities

Strategy #1: Create collisions amongst entrepreneurial minded students and the general population amongst all disciplines, in order to organically spread innovation, collaboration, creativity, and entrepreneurship.

 Tactic 1: Cultivate talent in theme based hack-a-thon style events that correlate to the various colleges of academics, but appeal to the general population. We would want to create a brand that does not alienate or intimidate students that don’t necessarily think of this as “their” thing.

• 1-2 times per month
• 24hr Hackathons - “Think-A-Thon”)
• Various themes/prompts that represent the interests of all the colleges of academics i.e.:​
  • College of Education:
    • ​Reinvent the classroom
  • ​College of Health and Behavioral Studies:
    • ​Nursing   
      • ​Create low-cost products that meet basic needs of the world's poorest people.
  • ​Integrated Science and Technology / School of Art, Design and Art History:
    • ​Designing for a sustainable campus
    • Fashion think-a-thon

• The theme of these thinker-mixers/hack-a-thons would vary each time and would touch on topics that are up-to-date with current events to help attract students from all colleges within JMU. This in turn, would help continuity of participation and the dismantlement of silos.
• Gathering participant information gives us a more defined target audience to project some marketing efforts toward.
• Approaching these events with hopes of there being multi-disciplinary teams does not expedite the view that these are hack-a-thons or techie events. This merely generates exploratory and problem-solving experiences to any given area of study.
• Agenda for planning:

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• February 2015- Planning/Scheduling/Marketing
• March 2015- First Event
• April 2015- Second Event
• May 2015- Third Event

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• Tactic 2:Launch a heavily marketed website that establishes a network for students looking to collaborate and pursue a business or product idea. This JMU affiliated website would help spread awareness of funding opportunities, resources available on campus, upcoming I&E events, and clubs/groups.

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Strategy #2: Establish an entity on campus where any student with a creative idea can get all the resources needed to become the entrepreneur they want to be, and test, launch, and grow their business.

Tactic 1: Test, iterate, and scaleMadX Labs, JMU’s first seed stage startup accelerator.

• MadX Labs aims to serve JMU’s most talented student founders, giving them the best of both worlds by leveraging the resources of an entire University and its network. We give young entrepreneurs at JMU the opportunity to experience a traditional accelerator program; with the mentorship, training, office space, and funding they need in order to test, launch, and grow their business – while maintaining a status as a student.
  • University-wide, students are encourage to apply to MadX Labs startup accelerator two times a year in the beginning of each semester during “The Madison Challenge”, and if selected as winners they enter into the 12-week program and receive the mentorship, office space, and funding. After the 12 weeks, the program culminates in a Demo Day, where they will have the opportunity to pitch an invite only audience of JMU investors
    January 2015 - Launch
    April 2015 - Close of Program - Demo Day
    September 2015 - University Wide Launch
    December 2015 - Close of Program
  
  

  Strategy #3: Provide opportunities for students to become introduced to entrepreneurship and recognize their potential to become entrepreneurs at an early point in their collegiate careers.

  Tactic 1: Establish several “test courses” that can provide administration with an example of how a pattern of entrepreneurial and innovative courses in the General Education Program can lead to escalating forms of venture creation.

  February 2015: Initial interviews with students and General Education Council members.

  April 2015: Discovery and ideation. Explore what other schools are doing to introduce I&E earlier in their curriculum. Develop a series of courses in several clusters that could be implemented.

  May 2015: Proposal of I&E beta courses to the General Education Council.

  August 2015: Organization and strategic planning for kick-start of program courses in spring.

  • January 2015: Implementation of courses into the curriculum.

  Tactic 2:Start a four to five week ideation and entrepreneurship summer program for incoming freshmen and rising sophomores. This apply-for and optional course would not only fuel the entrepreneur mindset for these underclassmen early in their college career but it would also help mix students and provide infrastructure for a network of collaborators. The program would be open to all majors.

  Tactic 3:Pamphlets and brief informational speech about I&E opportunities/resources at freshmen year orientation.

  Tactic 4: Establish a Residential Learning Community for Entrepreneurship.  Students who participate in a Residential Learning Community get the unique opportunity to live and take classes with a small group of students who share similar interests. This helps students to be fully immersed in the topic of the RLC.  9 of these already exist on campus, and the Entrepreneurship RLC is already in the works through some members of Society of Entrepreneurs.

  
  

  
  

  Strategy #4: Integrate Entrepreneurial Courses into Curriculum
  

  Currently the BME Department requres undergraduate engineeing to complete 19 credits of General Education.  None of the Entreprenurial courses offered by the business school are listed as allowed electives.  Giving student the opportunity to take these courese without delaying graduation to do so will greatly increase engineering participation.  (Project Lead - Ana Hertz)

  • Meet with Department Chair to discuss current Elective Options (2-28-15)
  • Review ABET, University, or any other accretidation requirements (3-31-15)
  • Propose specific courses to be added to list of accepted BME general electives (4-15-15)
    • May include ENTR 2000,3100,3200,4400
  • Target Implementation Fall 2015

  Strategy #5: Impementation to the other Engineering Colleges
  

  If Strategies 1, 3, or 4 prove to be successfull in the Biomedical Engineering Department, Extend these changes to the other engineering departments

  • Long term - Target Fall 2016 or beyond as needed

  Strategy #6 (legacy): Potential Stage - Expand Student Organization: I-Envision 
  

  Tactic  #1: Add New Board Members From Other Departments.
  

  Description: Currently, I-Envision is the largest student organization of entrepreneurship in JPEC. However, I-Envision are mostly run by students from College of Business. A cross functional team will be able to promote entrepreneurship to further to other departments. Also, representatives from multiple departments will facilitate the organization of events across campus.

  Team leader: Steven Hensley and Chen Cui

  Milestones: One board member from each of STEM majors, medicine, and liberal arts, who is in charge of arranging all entrepreneurial events at his/her department.  Feb., 2014

   

  Tactic #2: Organize Speaker Events/Workshops at each Department.

  Description: A viable way of increasing non business majors’ engagement is to bring the event to specific departments. Meanwhile, it is effective to invite alumni or previous student entrepreneurs from those departments.  

  Team leader: All new board members

  Milestones: Hold at least one event at each of STEM, medicine and liberal art buildings. Recruit 5-10 new members to I-Envision each semester.

  Time: Speaker events at STEM departments Feb 2014

  Strategy #7 (legacy): Applied Stage - Restructure Current Courses 
  

  Tactic #1: Add Entrepreneurial Session to Courses, such as Senior Project Design and Software Development.

  Description: It is very important to equip students who are currently involved in innovative projects with basic entrepreneurial knowledge. Many project results are left cold once the course is over, while many of them are a good start for entrepreneurship. A possible solution is to add a few sessions during the project meetings that inform students the options they have regarding their project results. Also  provide them with necessary channels for startup resources.

  Team leader: Engineering faculty

  Milestone:

  • Added entrepreneurial sessions Spring 2014 
  • More design projects can be turned into viable business plan.  Summer 2014

   

  Strategy #8 (legacy): Applied Stage - Add New Activities Targeting STEM Students 
  

  Tactic #1: Add a New Chapter of Google Developer Group at University of Iowa

  Description: To provide a platform for STEM students to exchange ideas of and participate the latest technology innovation.

  Team Leader: Chen Cui

  Milestone:

  1.  Hold a GDG DevFest, including keynote speaker, hack-a-thon, code labs and more. March 2014

  2. Assist student team successfully to be accepted by Google Summer Code Program.   Summer 2014

  
  

  Google Summer Code： https://developers.google.com/open-source/soc/

  Google Developer Group: https://developers.google.com/

  Impact

  Related Links

  Chen Cui

  University of Iowa