Wichita State University

Project Pitch Video

Strategy 1: Alter the campus culture through curriculum

Project Lead: Kevin Kraus

Tactic #1: Introduce students to design courses early on.

Selected Topics in Design is an aerospace engineering course that offers sophomore and junior honors students the opportunity to work side-by-side with the aerospace engineering students enrolled in their senior design course. Creating parallel courses in the other engineering departments would help form a foundation in design earlier on in a student’s academic career.

Speak with faculty of senior design courses to gauge feasibility
Discuss the option of these courses fulfilling Engineer of 2020 requirement
Create first revision of curriculum
Begin offering these courses

Tactic #2: Offer interdisciplinary design courses.

Interdisciplinary work allows students the opportunity to gain new perspectives of how their majors interact with other majors in the business world. A design course that involved business and engineering majors and emphasized product lifecycle management would expose the students to different mindsets and a more holistic understanding of how an idea or solution is created out of an initial design and eventually marketed. This course could also facilitate community business partners that offer real world problems for the students to undertake as their design project.

Find a faculty member interested in teaching the course
Determine if this course could satisfy senior design requirements
Identify community businesses interested in a partnership
Create first revision of curriculum
Begin offering the course

Project Lead: Michael Schlesinger, Caylin Wiley, Jesus Gomez and LaRissa Lawrie

Tactic #3: Rethinking Senior Design Courses

Interdisciplinary Senior Design Teams:

Through our stakeholder meeting, we have understood that some departments won't give up their requirements when dealing with Senior Design, specially the engineering departments. However, we talked about the possibility of creating indepedent teams in different colleges when students start their senior year or project. Then, the goal was to create a link or collaboration between those groups and develop a company model between them. For example, we talked about the possibility about creating a group of aerospace engineers who will be in charge of the airplane design, electrical engineers about the circuits required, mechanical engineers dealing with engines, business to create a business model or marketing to investigate if there will be a profit, art and communication majors to create the brand, visual design and publicity. The combinations are limitless.

Involving Employers

Many students strive to network with employers early on in their college careers. However, lack of opportunities often leaves students wanting more interactions than they get. One way we can change this is by allowing students the opportunity to involve employers in their senior design project. While some colleges already incorporate this idea, it is limited to specific colleges and few employers. Connecting employers with students provides benefits to both side. Students have the chance to obtain real world experience with employers and the problems they face. Employers then have the opportunity to utilize a senior design team to help them resolve an issue within their company. Allowing students and employers to work side by side in senior design projects would help prepare students for their future.

Workshops to help Senior Design students

Some students have the drive to turn their senior design projects into something more. The students we interviewed where looking for resources on how to take a research project and turn it into a viable business or patentable product. The first step to accomplishing this and changing curriculum is to empower students. Part of this tactic is giving students the equivalent of a pop class workshop on senior design classes. Talks are occurring with the research institutes on campus about funding and structural support. The workshops will be designed to take students through the stages of design thinking and prepare students with the lean startup model. The current plan is to hold the workshops three times a semester.

Overview:

As one fo the the leading contributers to the Tech Transfer and Research Development schools in the State of Kansas it is important for Wichita State University to continue to push for new methods of encourageing students and to provide opportunities to broaden their intellectual development. By setting in place initiatives that would help facilitate more innovative business models, students could then begin to explore the potentials of their academic course material and truly begin understanding the implecations to their education.

It is through the social interactions between student to student contributors, faculty to student advisement, and business to student relationships that as a Univesity the cultural development will shift from faculty driven research and development to that of the entire University body working in cotangent towards a more dynamic expereince.

Strategy 2: Shocker Startup, a student organization to promote entrepreneurship across the campus and community

Project Lead: Hannah Hund

Team: LaRissa Lawrie, Wesley Alexis

Tactic #1: Connect ICT

Connect ICT Logo

Students want to collaborate on projects with people from different disciplines, but do not have a venue to interact with students from other programs or interested community members. Connect ICT is a networking event hosted by Shocker Startup designed to create meaningful collisions between students from different disciplines and the community. Students will share their project idea to a student and community member audience stating what they want to do and what they need to accomplish their goals. Members of the audience with a different backgrounds and access to resources are encouraged to approach presenting students and form teams or partnerships.

Tactic #2: Shocker Startup Impact

Shocker Startup Logo

The Impact Speaker Series will host speakers that provide information and inspiration to encourage entrepreneurship in the student population and Wichita community. This event will contribute to the living learning community at Wichita State.

Tactic #3: Pitch and Presentation Competitions

Shocker Startup will host pitch and presentation competitions to give students the experience and practice they need to create startups. Encouraging community members and industry to be judges will help to further bind the relationship between Wichita State students and the community.

Tactic #4: Partner with Center for Entrepreneurship Forum Series<o:p></o:p>

Shocker Startup will partner with the Wichita State Center for Entrepreneurship to get more students interested in Entrepreneurship. The next series will be part of Shocker Startup to further promote the relationship between the students, community, and university. <o:p></o:p>

Strategy 3: Develop legal competency and security for designers and creatives.

Project Lead: Wesley Alexis
Tactic 1: Offer courses on patent law.

Assess student need by survey.
Assess and constructively critique current IP and legal services at WSU
Find faculty and department interested in teaching.
Use student, faculty, and legal feedback to develop the curriculum.
Offer the course.

Tactic 2: Employ external legal counsel

Compile a list of law firms not on retainer to WSU.
Of these firms, seek either probono or funding for a legal counsel.
Establish a connection for direct designer/creative-legal counsel.

Tactic 3: Offer legal workshops for young entrepreneurs, designers, and creatives.

Contact Business Booster & Tech Transfer’s directors.
Analyze “customer” perspective and surveys.
Develop engaging and informative workshops.
Offer workshops.

Strategy 4: Innovation Central Network

Project Lead: Austin Crane

Connecting students with students or students with resources is the biggest problem with starting a startup at a university, the solution is to create an online environment of like minded students with other students and the universities resources. Students value their time more than they value anything and creating an online environment that they can search and post their needs will help save them time and give them multiple options to choose from.

Short term tactics:

poll students and see what the need is for resources and founding members
poll current startups from the community that have found success and failure and see what could have helped them in the early stage of their startup
create a minimum viable product with a local startup

Long term tactics:

look at marketing to a global audience
implement it in other universities
create an app?
create a network within ACE or other organizations

The following link directs to the online environment previously mentioned:

http://thestartuphq.com/

Strategy 5: Improve and Initiate New Avenues of Inspiration and Innovation

Project Lead – Saad Syed

To inspire students with new ideas is a challenge that will always be ever evolving. At the same time there will always be resources available to organizations to help spark inspiration and innovation. We have identified one such event to be as evolving as the challenge itself. We believe starting a tradition of hosting a TedX event every year for all students will help create that culture of inspiration and innovation.

Short Term Tactics to Implement Strategy

- Interview students of all discipline to gather data on ideas and topics for TedX event.

- Research logistics of hosting TedX and similar events.

- Engage administration to help facilitate event.

Long Term Tactics to Implement Strategy

- Develop a plan for future fellows to take ownership of organizing and hosting event each year.

- Develop plan to host smaller similar inspiration events throughout school year.

Priorities:Wichita State University Student Priorities

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