Priorities:Dalhousie University - Student Priorities

Dalhousie University Student Priorities

OVERVIEW

Dalhousie University is located in the heart of Halifax in Nova Scotia, Canada. Local startup ecosystem in Halifax is still at its growing stage. There have been several champions working on developing the ecosystem, but only very recently has the government started to put more pressure on universities to promote entrepreneurship and facilitate deeper connection with the local startup community. Based on this initiative there was a group of political, academic and business leaders formed called oneNS Coalition. The mandate of oneNS Coalition is to instill further growth in the region and a 10 year plan for economic development and sustainability. One of the major topics is entrepreneurship and innovation.

Going through the training to become University Innovation Fellow, we had a great opportunity to get out of the building and talk to large amount of students and faculty member from across the campus and map out our campus landscape and recognize some of the major shortcomings that need to be addressed. One of our findings was that students are not very aware of the resources and possiblities the E&I community can offer them at Dalhousie and Halifax. Although, some students are aware of some societies, events and spaces that are offered to them, majority of the students are in the mindset that the resources are mostly for business students at Dalhousie. This creates a lack of cross-faculty interaction under E&I.

The Sexton Engineering Campus at Dalhousie University is physically isolated from the main campus, Studley. This hinders the opportunity for full collaboration within the main campus. We believe that cross-faculty collaboration is essential for further growth of our startup ecosystem. A great example of this is a company called Spring Loaded, where three students from various faculties met in the Starting Lean Course, came up with an idea for a new generation of knee braces and rose over $1.8 million in seed financing to date.

Dalhousie Entrepreneurship Society (D.E.S.) has done tremendous work in the short amount of time they have had since the society was created. Most of the activities and events that we will host will be under D.E.S. because it will give us the platform and power to be in touch with students who have shown some interest in E&I. The D.E.S. will be our main hub that will allow us to get funding and reach the maximum number of students, stakeholder and investors. Our main goal this year is to get increased involvement from students, and for that, we need some funding to be able to bring value to them where they will have the incentive to join our society and take part in our activities.

Strategy #1 - Connecting Engineering Students with the rest of the campus

We are very pleased with the initiative from the university and the province to create the Innovation Hub (IDEA Building) which is a Multipurpose building on Sexton Campus. As University Fellow candidates, we fully support this initiative and are willing to help to further promote it as well as help with information interviews, planning and further ideation on its programs and events.

Tactic no.1

Engineering Connect (E-Connect) D.E.S plans to organize a series of workshops and events that facilitates the free flow of ideas and networking between the engineering campus and rest of the faculties at Dalhousie University.

Tactic no.2

Maker Club - Garage Create a student-led club on the main campus that will promote our main makerspace on Sexton Campus. This space would serve as place where students can get in initial contact with 3D Printing, Electronics, Raspberry Pi’s and more. This would create a funnel of students on main campus for Innovation Hub on Sexton Campus.

Strategy #2 - Dalhousie Entrepreneurship Society (D.E.S.)

A student-centric organization on campus that aims to build an inclusive innovation and entrepreneurship ecosystem on the Dalhousie University campus from within by exposing students in all faculties to resources and funding opportunities, organizing hackathons, startup weekends, conferences and connecting them with the local startup community. D.E.S serves as a vehicle to deliver our strategic student priorities and initiatives.

Tactic no.1:

Build a framework which we can pass along for next generation of student entrepreneurs.

Tactic no.2:

Recruit students in their first and second year to ensure sustainable future for D.E.S.

Tactic no.3

Raise awareness with series of student-driven events, meetups and competitions. In addition, we are currently in the process of creating new By-Laws and a more comprehensive Constitution to enable us fully establish ourselves as the leading student-led organization promoting Entrepreneurship and Innovation on Campus and help us seek further funding opportunities.

Strategy #3 - Collider Space in Library (Innovation space in Killam Library)

The Collider is a multipurpose space in Killam Library for the collision of serendipitous ideas where from all academic and professional disciplines can come together to develop ideas and and create the future generation of innovators. The Collider connect students, local startups, mentors, investors and allows them to work together to help further grow the local startup ecosystem. Killam Library is the least-siloed space on the campus and place where people come together. It is in our best interest to help push this initiative to its full potential.

Tactic no.1:

Series of Hackathons, Events & Conferences The Collider would serve a great venue for a series of student-led Hackathons, Events & Conferences.

Tactic no.2:

Encourage students to use the collider space for design thinking.

Strategy #4 - Co-curricular Record (Design Thinking & Lean Methodology)

We proposing to have Design Thinking & Lean Methodology offered as official co-curricular record to motivate students to get introduced to the entrepreneurial mindset. This would serve as an ideal channel to non-invasively encourage students to get involved with entrepreneurship on the campus.

Tactic no.1:

Register all the Entrepreneurship and Innovation related events, contests, competitions, workshops etc. on co-curricular database.

Tactic no.2:

Enable students to enter their volunteer, participant, mentor, speaker, winner positions within E&I on their co-curricular record which later will benefit their resume.

Strategy #5 – Start a bi-weekly E&I Newsletter to Keep Students and Stakeholders Informed

Our main issue around campus right now is to to get the word out and to get students involved with entrepreneurship and to pursue their ideas. After a lot of customer discover, we find that a newsletter to get the word out would be the ideal way to let students, faculty and alumni know about our activities and events that we are hosting.

Tactic no.1:

Grow a newsletter network of students, alumni, and stakeholders.

Tactic no.2:

Keep the newsletter network poseted aboutE&I related news, events, workshops, conpetitions etc.

Tactic no.3:

Encourage people to sign up and keep reading the newsletter by hosting regular give away draws.

Strategy #6 – Promote the use of The Collider

Tactic no.1:

Hosting regular workshops in order to get students more informed and engaged about E&I As part of our initiative to get more students involved from all faculties, we will be hosting regular events and workshops for students to gain all the skills they need to run a startup. These workshops have to be regular so students get to know the schedule and come as they have available time. The workshops will be hosted by guest speakers and facilitated by volunteers. The topics we wish to cover include coding for beginners, design, making effective phone calls, and much more.

Tactic no.:2

Build a design thinking corner in the collider space We would like to enable students to use physical office/home supplies to create their prototypes right in the collider during the workshops, events, or contests. This will allow students to create a physical prototype and get one step closer to the final product.

Strategy #7 – Hold More Student-Lead Hackathons on a Regular Basis

We want to challenge the idea that hackathons are only tech-related. In order to get students from all backgrounds and faculties involved, we have to host hackathons for different disciplines like a hackathon for computer science, one for health sciences and another for ocean science. Dalhousie Entrepreneurship Society held the first student-led hackathon for Oceanography and Marine programs Hackamarine 2015. Hackamarine is going to be an annual event held at Dalhousie University, a school well known for its world-class Marine & Oceanography programs. This is a cross-faculty event aiming to bring talent from various fields to work on major problems in Oceans & Marine Sciences. The winning teams took home a cumulative total of $5,000 in prizes.

Tactic no.1:

Keep Hackamarine running annually to get more oceanography/earth sciences students engaged in E&I.

Tactic no.2:

Start the Dalhousie Hackathon Series (DHS), a series of monthly held hackathons created by partnering with different organizations and faculties to ensure collaboration.

Tactic no.3:

Make Hackathons more exciting/inviting by challenging students all over the four campuses of Dalhousie University.

Related Links

Dalhousie University

Justin Javorek

Dhruv Bhatia

Yaser Alkayale

Séline Dogan