Priorities:George Mason University Student Priorities

Overview 

Strategy 1: Increase Awareness of current I&E

George Mason has several resources to offer, but often times our students are unaward of them or who to contact. Projects are interdisciplinary and will almost always require insight from different areas of study in order to succeed. We want to see more involvement in our clubs, especially now with the establishment of the Mason Innovation Exchange.

Fliers and listsev emails are the most common ways of advertising on campus. This can be effective, and attract the people who are looking, but with a school of three campuses and over 33,000 students this can only go so far.

Task 1: Expand visiting lecture programs 

George Mason has a TEDx program that hosts muliplte speakers in addition to an anual conference. Inviting a successful entrepreneur/startup in the DC area, or a Mason alum to give a talk would be an excellent way to inspire students. 

Task 2: Pitches in classrooms

Making short pitches in business and engineering courses is the most direct way to engage with students and advertise I&E opportunities around campus. A simple and effectivep pitch is a cheap but powerful tool. Our fellows do have limited time and scheduling visits with professors must be done well in advance.

Task 3: 

Strategy 2: Introduce new Course (or improve existing)

Innovation requires collaboration. Creating and running a company requires brining in diverse skill sets to complete a variety of different tasks. Why keep students within their respective schools for most of their college careers then?

Many majors have senoior capstone or design courses, and while these are useful and often times require a few years of experience and knowledge to complete, it may be worth while to create an early stage design class. This one will be interdisciplinary, with the intention of forging creative and strong relationships with different schools and majors early on.

Task 1: meet with target departments

Task 2: develop course outline 

Task 3: gauge opinion of students (lean startup, right?!)

Strategy 3: Interdisciplinary app/web building organization 

This idea was inspired by successful projects at other schools. This institution would operated as a quasi-business under control of the university. Students would be selected through a hiring process and work on projects in three main categories:

1) app and web development

2) web and graphic design

3) maintenaince and analytics

Students can earn money, develop connections, and build a portfolio that will help secure successful jobs upon graduation. It also serves as a focal point for others who lack programming experience to seek out assistance on projects and business ideas. Foreign students have much to gain as well, as their visas prohibit work outside of the school. Because this would be a part of the university, we can provide solid, career related work.

Task 1: Meet with relevant groups and departments

Task 2: Draft proposal to send to Provost and departments

Task 3: Work through required paperwork

Task 4: Assemble hiring committee and construct guidlines

Task 5: Recruit members

Task 6: Pound the pavement and use school networks to assemble client list

Task 7: Appropriate early funding from school for campus related sites and projects 

Task 8: Seek out partnerships - Google Partners, establish Google Developers Group 

Task 9: Look for office space/physical location for operations

Strategy 4: Centralized website

There is a very basic structure website (makers.onmason.com) that currenly serves as our hub for resources and groups on campus. This could use a little revamp into something more user and mobile friendly, and that provides more information. Ideally, every project, place, group, etc. that relates to I&E would get their own web page(s). This would be easier to acchomplish with the above mentioned strategy and could possibly serve as a first project.

Task 1: scout for (and secure) talent

Mason SRCT (student run computing and technology), web/graphic design courses are the first places to recruit.

Task 2: contact relevent organizations, projects, and people

This is meant to be a central online hub for students to connect and learn about everythign I&E on campus, which means that every relevant stakeholder should have a spot. These include

• RSOs (registered student organizations)
• Innovation Lab
• MIX
• LITE
• Inventors Club
• Startup Mason
• Startup Vixens
• Business Plan Competition
• Pragmatics Pitch (LITE)
• Center for I&E
• Center for Social Entrepreneurship
• External workspaces (1776, MEC, Nova Labs)
• many more...

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Task 3: secure funding from school

Students will be paid for their work, both for construction and maintainence. Funding could come from departments, the Provost office, or grants offered through a few departments. The Auxiliary Enterprises grant is one particular option, and awards funding for projects that fall within the school's mission statement. 

Strategy 5: Create I&E Living and Learning Community (LLC)

Strategy 6: Mason I&E Fellows 

Strategy 7:  

 Related Links:

George_Fox_University

http://universityinnovation.org/wiki/Bryan_Neufeld