Priorities:Arizona State University Tempe Student Priorities

Overview

Arizona State University has a slew of impressive innovation and entrepreneurship opportunities with which students may engage themselves.  With over 7 majors, across 4 different schools, several certficates, and multiple campuses and satalite research and innovation centers geared towards pushing students towards entrepreneurship, ASU has made it a priority to harness the ideas and talents of its students.  The central hub for entrepreneurship at Arizona State University is located online through the Office of Knowledge Enterprise Development.  This office spans the resources available on the ASU Tempe, Polytechnic, and Skysong campuses (those most involved with entrepreneurship and technological innovation) as well as other satalite research institutions affiliated with ASU.  Information contained on this website includes:

• Research at ASU
• Technology transfer services and programs
• The Entrepreneurship and Innovation Group
• Additional services and support for student and faculty entrepreneurs

With the new focus of ASU's entrepreneurship programming, the Skysong campus houses the Edson Student Entrepreneur Initiative, a program which produces approximately 20 student-led startups each year.  Additional programming, including the Great Little Company Network, have been added to more than double the capacity of Skysong to produce student-led ventures.  Skysong is posited as a hub where industry connections, and other ASU networks are leveraged to produce well founded  student ventures. 

Additionally, new focus is being directed towards increasing makerspace and providing access to advanced tools and resources to facilitate venture and product development. A new and very large project, which is still under construction, is the Chandler Innovation Center, based about 40 minutes away from the Tempe campus. 

Though there appears to be a wealth of opportunities and resources available to students at ASU, there are some significant limiting factors to the usefulness and effectiveness of these facilities and resources.  These limiting factors include:

• Many of the ~80 courses which are geared towards entrepreneurship are upper division classes which require a specific major designation (and are limited to students within to that major) instead of being broadscope and inclusive.  The nature of entrepreneurship itself is neglected in this administrative barrier. 
• Many students do not have the necessary transportation to reach many of these large -  almost superstructure type - facilities which are located very far off an already very large campus. 
• Many student ventures are competing for too few spots and available funding.  Disenfranchisement of students occurs when there are over 500 startups competing for 50 spots.

The following two strategies will address the physical and psycological barriers which confront students seeking help with their entrepreneurial and innovative ideas. These strategies focuse on the accessibility of resources and how they can be improved to reach more students. 

Link to Prezi overview of campus ecosystem:

Calling all Students

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

• Where: TBD
• When: TBD
• RSVP: TBD

Strategy #1: Decentralized Access

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

Tactic #1: Peer-led Makerspace

• Description - A peer lead makerspace on campus which provides students access to design, creation, and prototyping spaces.  This space should be large enough to encourage multidisciplinary interaction among all vital parts of a successful student-led startup.  The space will be open to all majors, and the allocation of space to different student projects and teams will be decided and facilitated by a student filled board of directors.  
• Team Leader:: Mary Wilcox
• Milestones:
  • Scout available/vacant or underutilized spaces on campus                           11/13
  • Request space from current overseer
  • Open discourse with Office of Knowledge Enterprise Development             12/13
  • Propose plan for space                                                                                           01/14
  • Initiate student involvement in beta testing of space                                         02/14
  • Soft launch                                                                                                                 04/14
  • Full launch                                                                                                       

Tactic #2: Relaxing Administrative Barriers

• Description - Allowing students from one discipline to cross over into entrepreneurship related courses offered by a school that houses different majors is key to unlocking the cross disciplinary discourse necessary to branch out and create new ventures.  Perhaps a Graphic Design student with an interest in modeling would like to take a class on engineering entrepreneurship, or a Web Design student is looking for a class to learn skills necessary to partner with other students to create a campus wide network - these students would be better served by having access to entrepreneurship classes in which they will connect with other like-minded students while learning the necessary skills to be successful entrepreneurs.
• Team Leader:: TBD
• Milestones:
  • Initiate discourse with Administration regarding I&E courses                         12/13 (for 08/14)

Strategy #2: ________

Following are an array of strategies that will fully address Gap #2 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]