1 Project Pitch Video
2 Strategy #1
3 Strategy #2:
4 Strategy #3
5 Strategy #4
6 Strategy #5:
- 6.1 Tactic #1: MadX Labs
7 Strategy #6
8 Strategy #4:
- 8.1 Tactic #1: Develop a Hub
9 Strategy #5
- 9.1 Tactic #1: Regional Meet-up
- 9.2 Tactic #2: Corporate Outreach/Integration Efforts
10 Related Links
- 10.1 Fellows

Project Pitch Video

James Madison University Cohort 4A Video Pitch

Promoting Innovation & Entrepreneurial Opportunities at James Madison University

Strategy #1

Provide students with more innovative and entrepreneurial opportunities by exposing them to the Landscape Canvas & Wiki Pages. This would be executed by making information easily accessible and intuitive for students campus wide.

Tactic #1: Interactive Panels and Tablets Across Campus

Description: Install fun to use tablets in areas on campus where foot traffic is heavy.
- Dining Locations
- Residence Halls
- Libraries
- Maker Spaces

Tactic #2: Information Posted on Student Websites

Description: Make information more available on student websites in a more accessible fashion.
- MyMadison
- JMU.org
- Canvas

Tactic #3: Print Out Versions of Information

Description: Provide an easy to read flowchart of innovative and entrepreneurial opportunities on print outs to distribute to students.
- House in Libraries
- Have University Innovation Fellows and or University Faculty distribute print outs to interested students.

Tactic #4: Hold Seminar targeted at Underclassmen

Description: Hold seminar open to all students walking through the different opportunities found in the Landscape Canvas.
- Have representatives from courses, programs, and organizations speak about how they inspire innovation and entrepreneurship type thinking.
- Give out small brochures describing the information on the landscape canvas.

Strategy #2:

Bring international students to James Madison University for a 2 week summer program focused healvily on innovation and entrepreneurship.

Tactic #1: Course Variety

Decription: Provide courses in various fields of study to encourage a wider audience of students.
- Examples:
  - Engineering
  - Business Start Up
  - Rapid Prototyping

Tactic #2: University Exposure

Description: Introduce students to campus and University life in the United States.
- JMU Dining
- Student Organizations
- Residential Life
- University Recreation
- Speaking with Professors

Tactic #3: Hackathon Connections

Description:Provide students with the opportunit to make connections through a hackathon which would take place during the summer school program.
- Sponsors could incorporate prizes.
- Company employees and James Madison faculty would serve as mentors during the innovative process.
- Students can search out potential jobs or internship opportunities.
- Participants are given the opportunity to engage in design thinking.

Strategy #3

Expand X-Labs space within Lakeview Hall and throughout campus to promote innovation and entrepreneurship.

Tactic #1:Convert Office Spaces

Description: Transforming the current offices in Lakeview Hall into an expanded collaborative work and makerspace.
- Remove non-innovative spaces in Lakeview Hall to provide more room for innovation and space for more technologies.

Tactic #2: Implement Into JMU General Education Curriculum

Create a new cluster of required classes for JMU students that will enhance the innovative and entrepreneurial ecosystem on campus.

Description: The entrepreneurial mindset is an important tool for all incoming and existing students as a form of engaged learning.

Tactic #3: Satellite Maker Spaces

Description: Convert or improve current lab spaces around campus into X-Labs affiliated maker spaces.
- Help to promote X-Labs name and encourage participation in innovative opportunities.
- Further establish X-Labs as an asset to the JMU ecosystem.

Strategy #4

Create Collisions amongst entrepreneurially minded students and the general population amongst all disciplines, in order to organically spread innovation, collaboration, creativity, and entrepreneurship.

Tactic #1: Theme Based Think-A-Thons

Description: 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 Think-A-Thons
- Various themes/prompts that represent the interests of all the colleges of academics
  - College of Education:
    - Reinvent the classroom
  - College of Health and Behavioral Studies:
    - 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 towards.
- 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.

Tactic #2: Make the I&E Network Accessible to Students

Description: 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.
Replicate a Landspace Canvas for I&E or create a landscape map to guide students through the process of finding relevent resources on campus for their prospective entrepreneurs.
- Daniel Phonelath will spearhead this project.

Tactic #3: 100 Level Collaborative Course

Course Description: A 100 level course that will bring freshman across a variety of majors together to help with the transition from high school to college. This course will utilize group discussions and short-term projects with teams made of diverse disciplines to foster collaborative and teamworking skills growth.
Emphases on leadership, creativity, and design thinking through 3 week long projects.
- Leadership: Through the use of the JMU Dux Center students will benchmark their leadership/teamworking skills style at the beginning of the course. Through out the course as they finish a 3 week project cycle, the group leader will receive 4-5 leadership reviews from their team members and each team member will receive reviews from their team members. At the end of the course a student will have participated in 4 groups, lead one, received feed back and completed the leadership challenge workbook.
- Creativity: During class students will practice creativity exercises, learn it's application and further their understanding through the text; "Creative Confidence" By David and Tom Kelly.
- Design Thinking: The course will be project-based with the application of light design thinking. In 3 weeks students will have had to discover more about a problem they have to solve, ideate solutions, prototype solutions and select the best idea for presentations.
- Public Presentations: At the end of a 3-week cycle each team will present their process, idea and prototype in a public space such as TDU. Each student will be required to bring at least 2 guests (no repeats) to this public event.
Course Plan
- Find the best way to register the course on MyMadison by Oct. 23, 2018
- Continue interviewing professors who show interest in coleading the course until Nov. 6, 2018
- Meeting with all stakeholders and potential course coleaders to create plan of action-Nov.9-13, 2018

Strategy #5:

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

Tactic #1: MadX Labs

Description: Test, iterate, and scale MadX Labs, JMU’s first seed-stage startup accelerator.
- MadX Labs will serve JMU’s most talented student founders, giving them the opportunity by leveraging the resources of an University and its potential contacts. We will give young entrepreneurs at JMU the opportunity to experience a traditional accelerator program; with the mentorship, training, space, and funding they need in order to test, launch, and grow their business.
- Students are encouraged to apply to MadX Labs accelerator two times a year in the beginning of each semester during "The Entrepreneurment Procurement". After 12 weeks, the program culminates in a Demo Day, where they will have the opportunity to pitch an invite only audience of JMU investor
- Agenda for planning:
  - Begin idea generation for funding - January 2018
  - Finalized Idea - February 20th 2018
  - Generation of interest/Advertisement - May 2018/August 2018
  - Planned Event Time - September 10-14

Strategy #6

Provide opportunities for incoming students and underclassmen to become introduced to innovation and entrepreneurship as well as recognize their potential to become entrepreneurs at an early point in their collegiate careers. This strategy will revolve around creating and marketing well known opportunites and physical spaces for students to express their innovative minds as well as stimulate team collaboration.

Tactic #1: Pop-Up Courses

Description: Continue the spread of 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 2018
  - Continue to host the "Pop-Up" classes in the JMU X-Labs maker space.
  - Work on gaining feedback through response forms and questionarres.
- April 2018
  - Expand Pop-Up courses to a large capacity for more involvement.
  - Increase the range of topics in the Pop-Up classes outside of typical STEM classes.
- May 2018
  - Work on continuing Pop-Up classes outreach and schedule more Pop-Up classes for the Fall semester.

Tactic #2: Summer Program

Description: Continiue 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.
Timeline: 6-Week program led by the Center for Entrepreneurship at James Madison.This 'Accelorator' helps students start ventures and allow them to grow in the X-Labs space.

Tactic #3: Spread the Word

Description: Create medium-scale marketing campaign of the JMU X-Labs.
Tools: The following tools will be used to help spread the word of the Labs.
- Social Media including Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Snapchat.
- On Campus Resources such as flyers, banners, and post-cards.
Timeline: Can start immediately in Febrauary 2018. This could take place as a flash-marketing campaign or a long term strategy.

Strategy #4:

Create a culture on campus that elevates JMU national visibility in I&E in order to attracts the most talented entrepreneurially minded faculty and students.

Tactic #1: Develop a Hub

Description: Develop, design, fundraise, and build a hub for student entrepreneurship and innovation that includes living space, maker spaces, open workspace, etc.
- To prove a need for this hub, we plan to use the spaces that currently exist on and around campus to establish smaller-scale environments in which student thinkers and entrepreneurs can come to work on their projects and collaborate on ideas.
- Through this beacon of entrepreneurship, offer a wide variety of programs and engagement opportunities for students to learn about and engage in all phases of the entrepreneurship and innovation process.
  - “Idea mixers” or “idea factory workshops” that are heavily marketed

Strategy #5

Provide opportunities for students to engage in entrepreunership and innovation with the greater local and regional community.

Tactic #1: Regional Meet-up

Description: The regional meet-up will bring UIF students from campuses within a 5-hour driving distance to James Madison University campus. Through various workshop students will understand JMU’s campus and share their own experiences from their respective campuses. Current James Madison University UIF members will create a collaborative environment for students to share ideas with each other.

Tactic #2: Corporate Outreach/Integration Efforts

Description: The goal is to connect corporate environments with higher education. We will approach this by connecting with well-known and widely respected corporate entities such as Google in order to organize "high-demand/interest" events and talks out of our ICE resources. All events should be informational, interactive and the hope is to connect students with coporate resources as they progress through their course-load and approach graduation.

Priorities:James Madison University Student Priorities

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