Priorities:University of Pittsburgh Student Priorities

Overview

The University of Pittsburgh is a well-known leader in innovation within the fields of engineering and medical research.  Translational research and entrepreneurship exist primarily at the institutional level.  Many organizations exist, like the Institute of Entrepreneurial Excellence, to give budding entrepreneurs the needed resources and inspiration to proceed from ideation to market.  In the last 20 years alone, such programs have created more than 800 startups and 7,000 jobs in the Pittsburgh area.  Between the sheer amount of research conducted and available seed funding (Coulter Program for bioengineering devices, other VC connections through Institute of Entrepreneurial Excellence) Innovation and Entrepreneurship needs only to be catalyzed to take off, since all necessary ingredients are in abundance at the University of Pittsburgh.

However, there is a huge gap on campus between these institutions and undergraduate students.  Most students are unaware of PantherlabWorks (a commercialization accelerator) and do not know that the university offers patent and IP counseling through the Office of Technology Management/Office of Enterprise Development.  At present, these institutions mainly serve graduate students and faculty. 

Fortunately, administrators are beginning to take a strong interest in university-facilitated patent development and product realization for undergraduate students.  Professors from the Industrial Engineering department will soon introduce a product realization certificate to span all majors and the chemical engineering department has recently revamped its sophomore and junior year curriculum to more intently convey design principles.  The mechanical engineering department, too, has been steadily increasing the focus on sustainability and marketability in undergraduate design classes, as in ‘MEMS 0024: Intro to Mechanical Engineering Design.’

Still, it is clear that there is more work to be done.  In many other disciplines, serious project management/design courses are not mandatory until senior year.  Further, freshman students are NEVER formally exposed to the opportunities of product development for engineers.  The best opportunities for undergrads to get involved in projects are in extracurricular clubs.  DesignHub, Engineers for a Sustainable World (ESW), and Engineers Without Borders (EWB) are three of the strongest organizations on campus for completing actual projects with significant impact in local and global communities.

Strategy #1: Inspire and Forge Project Teams

Following are an array of strategies that will fully address Gap #1 over a 2-3 year period:

Tactic #1: Create Advisory Board/Panel to Promote I&E

•   Description: Students in the Pitt Business school are currently looking to launch an entrepreneurship club- one that would connect mixed groups of students to form cohesive teams (engineering, business, law, etc. students) and validate market potential.  In partnering with this effort, an advisory board for I&E would seek out possible projects and give them to an able team.  It would be the goal of such a board to find the need on campus for different products, looking for possible ideas in extracurricular clubs, professors, and perhaps, industry.  These projects would be assigned to a team that applies with a plan to complete them, and they would be guided to the IP resources on campus and eventually to the proper contacts in the Business school for marketing advice.    

•   Team Leader:: TBD

Tactic #2: Host Seminars/Grand Challenges to Educate/Inspire

•   Description: Professors in the Engineering Education Resource Center (EERC), are in the process of applying for a grant to host seminars and challenge sessions for next semester.  As Innovation Fellows, we have been given the opportunity to help plan these events and hope to use them to foster support (especially at the freshman/sophomore level) for the movement.  Current seminar ideas include: Dinner with entrepreneurs, microGrant challenge, skill seminars. 

•   Team Leader:: TBD

Strategy #2: Provide better innovation spaces

Students on campus need more space to work on projects. These spaces will not only meet that need, they will also improve the innovative culture by giving students a home base, a hang out spot, where innovative communities can form.

In order to accomplish this goal, a group in the engineering school is starting an initial space in order to prove demand and bolster support. In the near future, we hope to expand the space and form multiple spaces, encompassing the entire scale of prototyping fidelity and providing the lowest posible barrier to entry to students in all schools at Pitt.

After the development of the makerspaces in the engineering school, additional spaces across campus with easier and more versatile accessibility to students of all majors is necessary to continually foster growth in design thinking and creative confidence for all students without unintentionally segregating student groups based on major or location. In this sense, mobile lab spaces that encourage low-tech, immediate solutions to all manners of creative problems, as well as collaboration of thought and ideals across different areas of study are required to come up with the next generation fo innovative and sustainable solutions with the constitution of multiple perspectives. 

Milestone #1: Find and Create a Space (Completed Jan 1st 2016)

•   Secured space in engineering building to serve as the first space. Space was remodelled and essentially inheirited as a blank slate.

Milestone #2: Form teams to manage the space (Initially formed Jan 19th)

The space is managed by 4 subteams. Each subteam has a team leader. All of the team leaders serve as the overall management team for the space, which is led by Zach Patterson. Dr. Buddy Clark serves as a faculty mentor & leader. Subteams are:

• Equipment Team: In charge of keeping an equipment & materials wishist and maintaining equipment & materials in the room. Led by Nick Petro
• Education & Training Team: In charge of training new users to use the space, creating training modules for equipment as it is added, and providing and stimulating ongoing education for members. Led by Kevin Gilboy
• Users Team: In charge of accumulating key data for the space in order to form a quantitative value proposition for additional spaces. Also helps determine baseline requirements for room use. Led by Linday Pietz
• Outreach Team: In charge of promoting the space both on and off campus. Seeks industry sponsors. Led by Reshef Elisha

Milestone #3: Have a completely organized, functional, highly used space
Date: April 2016

• Paint and outfit the room to make it a more welcoming and thought provoking place
• Set up equipment and materials in the room
• Iron out the management scheme to ensure maximum efficiency and effectiveness
• Maximize data tracking
• Steadily increase traffic and cultivate a community
• Secure industry sponsors

Milestone #4: Have a grand opening to kick off the new school year
Date: September 2016

After completely setting up the space, ensuring everthing runs smoothly, and perfecting our data tracking techniquies, we will begin to heavily promote the space in the new school year, holding events and doing our best to bring in more students than we have space and resources. By doing this, we hope to prove that demand has outgrown the space and that it is time to expand to more and better spaces. 

Milestone #5: Propose more and better spaces
Date: October 2016

The data collected over the course of the year will serve as the basis for a proposal to greatly increase the resources put into makerspaces and to rapidly expand our space to other location. We will propose both more spaces for general project work along with additional spaces for higher fildelity work.

Milestone #6: Begin a campuswide group of makerspaces
Date: Spring 2017

Using funding hopefully aquired from Milestone #5, we will scale up our proven management structure and launch additional spaces around campus

Initiative #2: Expand mobile creative labs for easier accessibity and diversity

Collaborating with the University of Pittsburgh Innovation Institute and multiple schools across campus, agents of innovation will be leading the development and integration of mobile creative spaces within student communities to instill generalized and technical design projects and initiatives based on case-by-case, topical choices made my collaborations of the creator lab development teams as well as affiliated active student communities.

Creator labs will focus more on the versatility and educational strength of the design thinking motif by providing models and methods that not only serve as bases for prototyping and ideation, but also the focus and subjectivity of different areas of study, including the natural sciences, engineering, expressive and visual arts, law, writing, public health, education, philosophy, etc. In particular, creator labs will allow creative and innovative students and thinkers from each school and club or organization across campus to experience not only generalized applied education on design thinking, but also focused learning and applied methods based on their field. Focused learning and methods within the framework of the creator lab will emphasize constitutive ideas and thoughts as a result of collaboration of multiple fields and areas of study within the parameters of a single field.

For instance, engineering concepts may fare very well in fostering new methods of problem-solving and solution conception within the scope of theater and the visual arts, provided enough guided investigation and collaboration is executed such that it is clearly shown that the problem parameters of the theater/visual arts framework coincide with the concepts and creative processes of the engineering framework. 

At the start of development (February 2016), the mobile creator lab concepts are conceptualized and elaborated with under the guidance of the University Innovation Fellows spring 2016 cohort, the University of Pittsburgh Innovation Institute, and student leaders and liaisons of multiple clubs and organizations that serve as great potential for change-making hosts of the mobile creator labs. Aakash Sudhakar (current University Innovation Candidate) serves as the main student leader of developing and integrating mobile creator labs within the Pitt community. 

Initiative #3: Develop student networks for enhanced creative sustainability

As a mirror to the objectives of Intiative #2: Expand Mobile Creative Labs For Easier Assibility and Diversity, it is important for students across campus who have versatility and experience in design thinking and the creative processes, especially within the scopes and frameworks of different majors, to have a community where they can come together with other like-minded students and students with minimal experience in design thinking and creative confidence to collaborate and refine thinking and problem-solving models. Much of what the University Innovation Fellows program does is a generalized framework for which to apply into specific problems and scenarios, but much of the success of those potential applications is very difficult to know as the student problems across campus can be difficult to identify, track and codify within the design thinking and creative confidence frameworks. 

To help develop and institutionalize a program that would better allow agents of innovation across campus to be aware and able to assist with these student issues, it is important to allow much of the power and ability of these problem-solving abilities to be in the hands of student leaders, activists and representatives throughout the Pitt community. Developing a mentorship network that focuses on student-to-student interaction and topical problem identification and solution scenarios serves not only as a type of exercise for refining design thinking and creative process models, but also encourages further investigation in areas of the Pitt student community that may be affected by issues outside of the immediate awareness of the University Innovation Fellows program. 

At the start of development (February 2016), the student creative network concepts are conceptualized and elaborated with under the guidance of the University Innovation Fellows spring 2016 cohort, the University of Pittsburgh Innovation Institute, and student leaders and activists across campus in the form of the ideation of a new club called the Pitt Master Minds network, inspired by a statement by Andrew Carnegie that a Master Mind is a "coordination of knowledge and effort, in a spirit of harmony, between two or more people, for the attainment of a definite purpose." Aakash Sudhakar (current University Innovation Candidate) serves as the main student leader of developing and promoting the use of design-based student creative networks within the Pitt community. It is important to note that the potential club will be affiliated with organizations and groups outside of Pitt, including mentorship networks and other Master Mind groups that can help provide problem scenarios and creative topics to direct Pitt's Master Mind network in innovative and constructive directions. 

Strategy #3: Increase awareness of I&E in the Arts and Science Progrograms 

Tactic #1: Advertising

•   Description: The Dietrich School of Arts and Sciences currently does not have an effective way to advertise innovation, entrepreneurship, and design thinking programs. In order to A&S to establish a stronger presence in the innovation and entrepreneurship community, there needs to be a better method of advertising programs available to students and increase communication between colleges. •   Team Leader: Emily Klonicki (current microbiology candidate) 

Milestones:

• Form a marketing committee
• Newsletter/ email list
• Speak to classes
• Have teams from A&S compete and participate in I&E programs

Tactic #2: Recruiting potential project teams

•   Description: Currently, Pitt provides multiple I&E programs available for students such as the Blast Furnace, Big Idea competition, Hackathons, Design Expo and, the Series. However, most participants come from either the business or engineering school. By recruiting potential project teams from A&S to participate in these programs, it will help establish an innovation and entrepreneurship community in this college. Team Leader: Emily Klonicki

Tactic #3: Provide a space for A&S students

•   Description: In the long term, with increasing student support we would hope to establish a space for A&S students to have low resolution prototyping material and whiteboards available for student use. Another future goal is to increase active learning opportunities within the classroom and for A&S students develop their own programs and hackathons which could be held in this space. Team Leader: Emily Klonicki

Strategy #4: Change Curriculum 

Tactic #1: First Year Classes

•   Description: Students at each of the schools at University of Pittsburgh are required to take an introductory class their freshman year. We could incorporate design thinking or innovation and entrepreneurship into the curriculum.

• In Spring 2015, the engineering school launched The Art of Making, a course initially designed for freshmen honors engineering students. The course is a demanding journey through the world of design thinking and rapid prototyping. Students leave the course having been introduced to a wide array of prototyping skills in fabrication, electronics, pretotyping, etc. More importantly, students gain the confidence to be doers and the background to better learn and apply material from theoretical coursework to come. As a cherry on top, the course drastically improves students' ability to choose a major within engineering as they get much better exposure to the sorts of things that different engineers might do. 
  The course has since been adapted for upperclassmen students both in and outside of engineering as an elective. Students who have participated in the course have gone on to be leaders in project based clubs and other similar endeavors.
  Dr. Joe Samosky is the preofessor and creator of the course. Many Pitt UIFs and UIFCs are co-creators and original TAs of the course including Nate Smialek, Zach Patterson, Brian Rhindress, Madhur Malhotra, and Ian McIntyre. Jenny Sommer is currently a TA for the Spring 2016 offering.

Tactic #2: Provide an Interdisciplinary Entrepreneurship Class

•   Description: Currently, Pitt has entrepreneurship and design thinking classes in all three schools. However, each class is only allowed to be taken by students from their respective schools. Pitt should add a course that allows students to take a class about innovation, design thinking and entrepreneurship that is open to all disciplines. That would allow students to see how to approach these problems from various viewpoints and will lead them to more creative thinking due to the interdisciplinary collaboration.

Tactic #3: Give credit to entrepreneurs

•   Description: Pitt offers credit to students with internships and research on campus. Pitt could apply the same thing to entrepreneurial ventures which would allow students to manage their time more effectively because their projects would go back to school credit.

Strategy #5: Startup Pitt

Innovation cannot thrive in a bubble. Entrepreneurship is up-and-coming in Pittsburgh, and it’s important that undergraduate and graduate students at the University of Pittsburgh are exposed to this awesome movement. Ian is experiencing the entrepreneurial drive first-hand. Regardless of the value of his bioengineering degree, Ian pondered dropping out of school after his startup was admitted into the Alphalab Gear Accelerator program. Ian has feet in both realms: one in the University, one in the community. At the University, Ian is watching groups of students practicing design thinking, innovation, and entrepreneurship, all which are valuable skills for those involved in startups. These students are driven and searching to use what they learn in the classroom on real-world projects. On the other side, Ian is (somewhat firsthand) witnessing the need for startups to hire interns with engineering, design, and business experience.  In fact, Ian worked as an intern with his project to further the technological and business development before the thought of commercialization occurred. Why can’t other interns help young startups succeed?

Startup Pitt is a smaller-scale model of Venture for America, a program that places recent college graduates in startups throughout the country. VFA Fellows have been instrumental in building businesses and helping startups succeed. Likewise, Startup Pitt interns will help Pittsburgh startups become successful while earning salary and a valuable internship experience. Of course, Startup Pitt keeps to it’s title: starting-up Pittsburgh as a center of entrepreneurship.

Program Specifics

The Startup Pitt process may be compared to an engineering cooperative-education (co-op) program, an educational program that places engineering students in an established company or engineering firm. A co-op student works for three semesters -- one full year -- with a schedule negotiated between the employer and student. A student may alternate between work and school semesters; work in the fall, assume classes in the spring, work in the summer, assume classes in the fall, etc. On the other hand, a company may want a student to work for a year through, during which time the student would not return to classes. There are subjective benefits and disadvantages to each schedule setup that vary with students and courses of studies. However, a  co-op trumps a traditional internship in that a student maintains full-time student status during the co-op semesters. Full-time student status permits a student to reside in on-campus dormitories and receive all the stipulations of being a student. A co-op student does not pay tuition unless she enrolls in night classes.

Startup Pitt provides a flexible hiring duration for startups and for students who are looking for an internship.  While a co-op is expected to work for three semesters, the Startup Pitt program adapts to the needs of the intern and the startup to satisfy both parties. For example, if a startup can only hire a student for one semester, Startup Pitt may provide an intern who appreciates the short-term work experience that will not delay graduation. Furthermore, Startup Pitt provides internships to not only engineering students, but also business students, students of design, and students who possess skillsets desired by a Pittsburgh startup. Startup Pitt allows a more flexible internship duration.

Finances hinder a startup’s ability to hire appropriate help. The Startup Pitt program acknowledges that startups may want to hire an intern but may not be able to afford an intern. Startup Pitt works with departments and organizations at the University of Pittsburgh as well as the supporters of Pittsburgh incubators to subsidize the pay for an intern. In this manner, a startup receives extra help to grow a business without the concern of paying an intern, and an intern receives pay while gaining valuable work experience.

Timeline

All objectives and tasks in the timeline are subject to change.

Customer discovery (March 2015)

Identify the needs of students at the University of Pittsburgh. Student groups include engineering students, business students, and those involved in I&E activities. Channels to reach students include department and program coordinators, seminars, and student / faculty organizations. Survey questions include

• Would you (students) be interested in working for a startup?
• How important is maintaining your full-time student status?
• For how many academic semesters could you see yourself working an internship at a startup?
• Why does working at a startup interest you?
• What kinds of skills do you believe are needed to be successful with growing a startup?
• Would you be willing to potentially delay your graduation?
• How much pay (hourly rate) would you see yourself making while interning at a startup?

Identify the needs of startups in Pittsburgh incubators and accelerators, such as startups involved in Alphalab, Alphalab Gear, Thrill Mill, Idea Foundry, and Revv Oakland.  Survey questions include

• Do you believe a college student pursuing an engineering / business / etc. major could make a contribution to your startup as an intern?
• What skills would you look for in a student intern for your startup?
• How long would you hire a Startup Pitt intern?
• If at all, how much could you afford to pay a Startup Pitt intern?
• If the Startup Pitt inter’s pay was subsidized through the University of Pittsburgh and/or your accelerator/incubator, would you be more likely to hire a Startup Pitt intern?

Prototype financial infrastructure (April 2015)

Coordinate with the University of Pittsburgh Innovation Institute, the Swanson School of Engineering, the College of Business Administration, and the investor networks who support Pittsburgh incubators/accelerators to assess the potential of subsidizing a Startup Pitt’s hourly pay. Establish the value of Startup Pitt with each supporter, and evaluate how much each supporter is willing to contribute to a Startup Pitt intern. 

Future tasks

• Discuss program with University of Pittsburgh administration. Investigate potential of maintaining full-time student status during employment (May 2015)
• Formulate a faculty and student committee to evaluate student applications (June 2015)

Strategy #6: Build an Entreneurship Community at Pitt Business

Curriculum

Options are currently being explored to incorporate entrepreneruship modules into business general education classes in order to spark interest in the subject and familiarize Pitt Business students with the large amount of resources available. It is important to get students where they are "captive" in the classroom setting and monitor our conversion rate from there to the workshops being offered on campus.

Enactus Spring 2016 Action Plan:

Entrepreneurship Cafe During the spring semester, Enactus and Pitt Business will host several "Entrepreneurship Cafe" sessions in which students, Entrepreneurs in Residence, and other I&E leaders will mingle and share ideas about innovation and entrepreneurship. Student participants are encouraged to come with ideas and topics they would like to discuss with the mentors present at the event. The concept is meant to foster a more organic approach to entrepreneurship and create an informal environment where people can share ideas and learn from each other. 

Entrepreneurship Showcase Momentum Plan:

1. Winning teams will be awarded a $100 stipend to work with Enactus as a project. They will also be provided financial guidance from the Enactus Finance Team (Josh Ordos and Bruce Baka)
2. Teams will be matched with a mentor or leader in the community through the Enactus Leadership Team and provided access to the BAB.
3. Winning teams will be given priority access to talk to speakers at all Enactus events and will also have the opportunity to get relevant site visits paid for by Enactus.
4. The Enactus Club will provide Lean Canvas model-training sessions to the winning teams during the course of semester.
5. The winnings teams will also have the opportunity to obtain intern support or additional team member support from Enactus club members.
6. Teams that continue to partner with Enactus as a sponsored project will be encouraged to compete at the regional and national competitions to earn more startup funding. 

BAB (Business Advisory Board) Plan: 

1. The BAB must be available to provide guidance to all winning teams at the Entrepreneurship Showcase hackathon.
2. They must also be accessible to any other Enactus projects at least once per month.
3. Each BAB member will serve to connect Enactus with at least one speaker per semester.
4. Each BAB member will be used to organize at least one site visit per semester for Enactus.
5. Each BAB member will be used as a project specific mentor to at least one Enactus team per semester.
6. The BAB members must attend at least one site visits, general body meeting, or speaker event in order to provide Enactus students with clear access to the BAB Board.
7. Recruitment - (Mario)

Food Waste/Related Momentum Plan:

 1.    Enactus will operate at least one food waste/related project this semester.

a.     This will be organized and led by Hope Murray and it is already in the planning.

2.    Enactus will hold 2 food waste related speakers.

a.     Tentatively: Hungry Harvest in March (Grant)

b.    Tentatively: Executive Chef at Sodexo (Rhonda + Audrey)

3.    Enactus will hold 2 food waste/related site visits this semester.

a.     Farm Truck Foods – A Food Waste Site Trip

b.    CMU Food Truck – A Food Waste Site Trip

c.     412 Food Rescue – A Food Waste Industry Speaker

4.    Enactus will also serve to connect students to startups in food related industries.

a.     The goal is to connect at least one Enactus member to a food industry related intern position in spring or summer 2016. 

Site Visit, Speaker Event, and Projects Goals: 

1.    Enactus will operate at least three projects this semester.

2.    Enactus will run at least 1 site visit per month.

a.     2 entrepreneurship related site visits:

                                               i.     TBA (Rhonda)

                                              ii.     TBA (Cathy Lada)

3.    Enactus will run at least 1 speaker event per month at general club meetings.

a.     2 entrepreneurship related speakers:

                                               i.     Tim Zak, Director of CMU’s Social Innovation Institute – A Global Perspective Talk (Rhonda + Cathy Lada)

                                              ii.     Nicole Muise-Kielkucki, Director of Social Enterprise Initiatives at Idea Foundry – Supporting Social Entrepreneurs Talk (Rhonda)

Regional and National Enactus Event Plan

1.    Regional: March 29^th Washington D.C.

a.     Application Due Date: February 22^nd

b.    Projects

                                               i.     Hope Murray – Food Truck/Membership College Café

                                              ii.     Mario – Student/Faculty Pet Day Care – Volunteers are Students

                                             iii.     TBA – Expecting 1 more project from new members this semester

                                            iv.     TBA – Expecting 1-3 more projects from the Entrepreneurship Showcase 

2.    National Event: May 15^th-17^th in St. Louis

a.     Due Date: TBA

b.    Projects

                                               i.     TBA

3.    Regional and National Events Planning Team

a.     Sophia Tan

b.    Mario Nicolia

c.     Grant Jacoby

d.    Hope Murray

e.    Demetra Mallios

Additional Groups and Organizations to Contact

1.     Food Recovery Network - For additional members and project ideas (TBA)

a.     Are there any other organizations that may consider co-membership to run the food truck? (TBA)

2.     University Innovation Fellows - For additional leadership assistance (Grant)

3.     Engineers for A Sustainable World - For additional members and project ideas (Grant/Engineer?)

4.     All Innovation Institute Events - For additional members and project ideas (TBA)

5.     Randall Family Big Idea - For additional members and project ideas (TBA)

6.     Thrill Mill – For internship opportunities for students (Grant)

7.     Design Hub - For additional members and project ideas (Mario)

• • • TBA - Need to find a recruiting chair for Enactus ASAP to go to all entrepreneurship events on campus to push meetings, events, and site visits

Future Goals and Standards 

1.     Food Hackathon September 2016

a.     Audrey - Can we start to organize a food hackathon for the beginning of the fall semester?

b.     Use this as a springboard for marketing attention for new membership.

2.     Enactus Leadership Requirements:

a.     1 site visit per month

b.     1 speaker per month

c.      At least 3 projects per any given semester

d.     1 industry focus per semester (can be multiple semesters)

e.     Participate in Regional Competition Annually

3.     Connect at least one student to a startup internship per semester in order to create a stronger internship network in the entrepreneurial community.

4.     Organize at least 1 hackathon per semester with another organization.

a.     Partner with at least one other CBA organizations to promote interdisciplinary relationships. </div>

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