Priorities:University of Oregon Student Priorities

Overview

The University of Oregon innovation and entrepreneurship landscape canvas has many opportunities. With two very strong programs at the University, Product Design and Entrepreneurship, there is tremedous opportunity for crossover, collaboration and joint innovation. The biggest issue: how to integrate two fairly segregated disciplines. Design students excel in the product creation side, whereas entrepreneurs tend to excel in implementation (at least as observed at U of O). These two disciplines have alot to offer one another; it is just a matter of getting the right people together. Designers need to create a mindset that the design process does not end at final prototyping; it continues into implimentation. Furthermore, business students can learn a lot about the design process, iterative ideation and rapid prototyping. This is my mission as a UIF at the University of Oregon. 

Strategy #1: Design and Entrepreneurship Collaboration through Courses and Student Groups

Tactic 1: Interdisciplinary Course in Entreprenuership and Design 

Overview: Given the size of our university, many courses are restricted to students who are declared with a certain major. For example, as a design student I cannot take courses in the business school and the inverse of this is also true. What University of Oregon needs is a couple of interdisciplinary courses that combine entrepreneurship and design to create interdisciplinary groups of students with diverse skillsets and knowledge. Motions have been set in place through faculty support to get this course approved for the University of Oregon. 

Milestones: 

March 2014: Faculty applies to get an entreprenueurship and design course approved for the University of Oregon

April 2014: Second Review by Oregon Higher Education Board 

April/May 2014: Student-run (Claire Sakaguchi) focus groups to determine interest levels for the course and what students are seeking to learn 

September 2015: Course is implemented 

September 2016: Given feedback of the first run of the course, it can be altered but is offered repeatedly for interested students

Individuals Involved: 

Nathan Lillegard (Director of Entrepreneurship)

Jason Germany (Professor in Product Design)

Tactic 2: 3DS Springboard Event 

Overview: 3DS Springboard is an excellent platform to bring students together across disciplines. This is an opportunity for students to learn the skills of entrepreneurship and apply them to a wide variety of situations, including creating a company, developing an idea or pursuing a student movement or organization. The format is very interactive, which allows students to collaborate with individuals of different disciplines. 

Milestones: 

April 2nd: Accepted into the 3DS Springboard program

April 2nd-April 12th: Recruitment across the entire campus through contacting department heads, university executives, student leaders, and generating PR for the University

April 13th: Event begins!

Spring 2014: Determine best and most active participants in the event and target them for being recruiters and promoters in the years to come

In order to make this a sustainable event, I will identify key students who participated in the 2014 event and recruit them to help with promotion and organization for 2015, etc.

Tactic 3: Collaboration of Student Groups

Overview: The University of Oregon is pretty well-saturated with different student groups. Of course there is tremendous opportunity for crossover, but I see little awareness for what each student group actually does. Furthermore, there is little awareness for some of the needs of the other groups. For example, our Design for America group could really use some help from Entrepreneurship Club when they get down to implementation and how to move into the market. 

Milestones: 

Winter 2013: Discussion with Dean of Students at the school of Architecture and Allied Arts to discuss areas of opportunity for awareness of different student groups. 

Spring 2014: Follow-up meeting to discuss feasible plans for students to get their student organizations recognized and discussed. 

Spring 2014: Start narrow - Get Design for America and Industrial Design Society of America more connected with the Entrepreneurship Club and establish a relationship between the organizations.

Spring 2014: Continute discussions between DFA, IDSA and EClub.

Spring 2014: Establish student leaders who will be on campus next year to sustain and facilitate the relationship. 

Fall 2014: Reestablish communication and discuss methods to get involved in each other's projects. 

Winter 2014: Continue working together and cycle through as needed. 

Strategy #2: Spaces for Innovation, Collaboration and Co-Creation 

Tactic 1: Allocating Space

Overview: We are big university and space is in constant demand. One of the challenges I forsee is finding space in a place that makes sense. This is by no means an impossible task, but it will require heavy networking and communication with the right people. I think the best way to get innovation, design and entrepreneurship to take place on our campus is through finding a maker space! This needs to be a totally communal space that is not allocated to any single discipline. Currently, we have our Romania Studio which is off campus and dedicated to senior Product Design students ONLY. While this is necessary, another space that is similar needs to be available to non-design, non-senior students. Groups like Design for America would love to use a space where they could leave Post-It notes up and work on projects collaboratively. Right now, we are always searching for some space to just sit, work, and pack up and leave. If we could leave ideation material, it may spark interest in other students who come by and use the space as well.

Milestones:

Spring 2014: Network, network, network! Find the right people who are aware of open spaces on campus that could be transformed into a student-run maker space. Our Memorial Union is currently being torn down and renovated so there may be an opportunity to include a new maker space in the new architectural plan... 

Spring 2014: Talk to John Hull (Executive Director of the Business School) to find resources within the Business School that could help

Spring 2014: Talk to Innovation Partnership Services 

Spring 2014: Talk to people invovled with EMU renovation

Spring 2014: Have faculty and students in place to help with the process after my graduation

Spring 2014: Hold focus groups with students to see what they want

Spring 2014: Potentially do rapid and low-fidelity prototypes of what a space could look like and how it could be used

Summer 2014: (Hopefully) there is some lead on a space that could be used, if not, continue this search

Fall 2014: Build out space and begin implementation!

Tactic #2: Allocating Funding

Overview: Another challenge I forsee is funding allocation. I won't need millions of dollars to make this work, just need enough to outfit the space with dry erase boards, pens, markers, materials, etc. 

Milestones: 

Spring 2014: Talk to the right people! Find the right people! 

Spring 2014: Talk to people at Innovation Partnership Services and the execs at the Business School. 

Spring 2014: Potentially reach out to companies that may have an invested interest in sponsoring this sort of project

Spring 2014: Apply for grants through NCIIA for University Innovation! 

Tactic #3: Creating a Board of Students

Overview: The last challenge I forsee is the safety and protection of the space. I've witnessed many spaces getting abused by students where they get a little comfortable and begin leaving their coffee cups, old work and everything that they don't feel like throwing away. I would hate to have a communal space intended for innovation and creation get trashed by students. I want the space to be very communal and open for use by anyone, but I also think there would need to be some type of monitoring that takes place. This may require getting a board of students that could help run, monitor and control the space. These could be students from all disciplines. Whether or not there will be paid students that will monitor the space is something that will need to be determined as the budget comes in... 

Milestones: 

Spring 2014: Determine a budget (or not...) 

Spring 2014: Identify key students who would be invested in helping see a maker space be successful!

Spring 2014: Identify key needs of the space 

Fall 2014: Begin getting students to use the space; identify how it is being used

Fall 2014: Connect and communicate with students who are interested in participating as board members

Fall 2014: Potentially connect IDSA with running this space

Fall 2014: Determine plans for use and sustainability

Strategy #3: Leverage coursework and projects to drive entrepreneurship and innovation

Students are already doing amazing things in the classroom. Finding and solving problems during each course. Unfortunately it is limited to the classroom. Even when a potential solution is found for a real world problem, it is left on the table and only used to satisfy course specific goals. Even worse is that the same problem is presented to each incoming class and then solved without using previous years work.

Tactic 1: Faculty and Staff involvement

Overview: Faculty are the individuals on the ground developing class content and assignments. However many faculty are unaware of the resources on campus and the potential of their classes for innovation. Entrepreneurship and innovation need to be factors that they consider when designing projects. This will require extensive conversation with faculty by the Innovation Fellows.

Milestones

Spring 2016: Identify courses with possible strong innovation focus and contact faculty.

Spring and Summer 2016: Meet with faculty to talk about innovation in class

Summer 2016: Persuade faculty to include a talk about innovation and include clause in projects with innovation potential. This clause would provide information about innovation on campus and how to finance or prototype their ideas (maker spaces or Spark Grants).

Fall 2016 - Spring 2017: Continue consulting with faculty on incorporating innovation/real world problems into projects and using previous classes work in future class.

Tactic 2: Student Awareness

Overview:Students themselve are the most powerful innovators on campus and are completing the classwork. Many students complete the classwork with the sole goal of finishing the class and may miss the real world applications along the way. This may also be because students are not aware that their are campus resources for them to take their ideas outside of the classroom. In some cases resources are not available to all students. This may be discouraging knowing that resources only become available at a senior level.

Spring 2016: Conduct research on student awareness of campus resources

Spring 2016: Brainstorm events to enhance visibility of campus resources to students

Fall 2016: Have campus resources placed in course materials (syllabus, project descriptions)

Fall 2016: Make current resources accessible to all students.

Strategy #4 Workshop Series to Teach Innovation and Entrepreneurship

Tactic 1:  Develop a workshop series that will teach innovation and entrepreneurship by solving a real world problem

Overview: In order to get more students to be interested in consistently coming to a workshop series to learn entrepreneurial skills we will use the effort of the students to solve a real world problem that students are passionate about.

Milestones:

Spring 2016: Have one workshop that will start brainstorming on issues that students would like to research

Spring 2016: Determine faculty that are in favor of this idea and could publicize the group in their classes

Spring 2016: Find a central space on campus that this event can be held

Summer 2016: Make a schedule for the 2016-2017 academic year

Related Links

University of Oregon

Claire Sakaguchi

David Phillips