Priorities:Wake Forest University Student Priorities

Overview

The Wake Forest University Innovation, Creativity, and Entrepreneurship program exhibits many characteristics of programs at much larger universities. The resources available, programs conducted, classes offered, faculty advisers, and overall desire to change the Wake Forest campus provides students exciting opportunities. One aspect that I believe differentiates Wake’s program is the multitude of classes offered by the Innovation, Creativity, and Entrepreneurship (ICE) Program. Entrepreneurship classes range everywhere from empowering high performance teams to equipping entrepreneurial scientist with the necessary skills to start a venture. Students start by taking three core courses to teach them basics of innovation, entrepreneurship, and managing a start-up. The wide variety of courses offered captures student interests from across many disciplines. This is purely evident by the number of Entrepreneurship and Social Enterprise minors on campus. The ICE program’s positioning within the university is also an explanation for its ubiquitous nature on the Wake Forest campus. The program is not considered a department, nor is it buried in our undergraduate business school. In fact, it is centrally located on campus with beautiful glass room offices providing a “googlesque” environment.

Furthermore, the ICE program provides remarkable ways to inspire the entire student body with events that call students to action. For example, the [1] has become a staple event by the ICE program which has hosted major speakers from the Wake Forest University Regenerative Medicine Primary Investigator, Dr. Anthony Atala to College Humor found Ricky Van Veen. For the past two years, both TEDx conferences have hosted 1000+ people and have brought an inspiring call to action on the Wake Forest campus. Moreover, the ICE program hosts a global entrepreneurship week, Entrepreneurial Speaker Series, and Excellence in Entrepreneurship Banquets.

In a different way, the innovation and entrepreneurship is bolstered on campus through the Seed Grant Proposal projects. Each semester, the ICE program provides students with a four day short series on writing grant proposals. This workshop offers business and non-business students advice on how to successfully write top-notch grant proposals. These students are then able to complete a business plan and submit their ideas to a committee within the ICE program. Students are invited to give 15 minute presentations and can be awarded up to $10,000 for their start-up. This process not only teaches students important entrepreneurial skills such as grant writing, business plan creation, and pitching but also provides them money to move their passion into an action. These points are just a few of the positive aspects I see with Wake Forest University’s Innovation, Creativity, and Entrepreneurship Program. At the same time, I have identified two sections of WFU’s I&E landscape that need improvement in order to foster higher levels of entrepreneurship on campus.

The gaps I see in the Wake Forest innovation and entrepreneurship ecosystem lay within the potential and applied columns. The potential column lacks a larger number of I&E extracurricular clubs, competitions, and start-up weekends which could augment the number of students involved on campus. In addition, the applied column lacks a well-developed infrastructure and team formation avenues. Improving these aspects could enhance student’s ability to apply their knowledge and solve specific problems. Wake Forest’s innovation and entrepreneurship activity is at a plateau; however, with the implementation of minor programs, drastic changes can occur bring innovation and entrepreneurship to the forefront of this campus.

Calling all students

Informational Session (come hear plans, offer feedback and help expand opportunities for all students)

Where: [Google Hangout On Air <a href="<a href="http://www.google.com/+/learnmore/hangouts/onair.html">http://www.google.com/+/learnmore/hangouts/onair.html</a>">[1]</a> or other existing meeting of students interested in I&E in Engineering.]
When: [Date, Time]
RSVP: [your email address, google form, eventbrite or meetup link]

Strategy #1: ________

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

Tactic #1: [Name of tactic]

Description [250 words on why this strategy will solve this gap on your campus]
Team Leader:: [Either your name, TBD or create a title assigned to the person who volunteers]
Milestones: [A set of bullets that characterize the work that would likely need to be executed, along with mm/yy]

Tactic #2: [Name of tactic]

Description [250 words on why this strategy will solve this gap on your campus]
Team Leader:: [Either your name, TBD or create a title assigned to the person who volunteers]
Milestones: [A set of bullets that characterize the work that would likely need to be executed, along with mm/yy]

Tactic #3: [Name of tactic]

Description [250 words on why this strategy will solve this gap on your campus]
Team Leader:: [Either your name, TBD or create a title assigned to the person who volunteers]
Milestones: [A set of bullets that characterize the work that would likely need to be executed, along with mm/yy]

Strategy #2: ________

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