Priorities:Stony Brook University Student Priorities

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The Blueprint

Following are actions to be undertaken by the University Innovation Fellow and their team in order to advance Innovation and Entrepreneurship opportunities for students, while also working to initiate institutional change:

Action A: Engaging Current Student Entrepreneurship

Approach#1: Design Competition: The Catalyst Challenge

A design competition, known as the Catalyst Challenge. The Challenge will require that teams of students be composed of at least one engineering and one business students, with a maximum of 5 members. It will be modeled after the 3-day startup and the Techcrunch Disrupt Challenge; the challenge will take place over the course of a weekend. Students will be required to submit an initial proposal of what they are seeking to build and design, understanding that they would have to achieve it in the course of 48 hours. Based on their proposals, about 10 ideas will be selected by the organizers and invited to participate in the challenge. Throughout the course of the weekend, teams will design and present their product to a panel of investors and company representatives on why their idea is worthy of investment. The panel will judge each team and give them ratings based on whether or not their idea is innovative and if their team has a strong business plan. The team with the highest rating will be given prize money for their idea and will have a member present their idea at TedXSBU. This challenge will allow students to not only network with each other but create vital industry partnerships they normally would not have been given the opportunity to do so.

Milestones: Have more than 25 applications for the Challenge with interdisciplinary teams

Goal: Have more students aware of the campus resources avaialble

Project Champion: Saba Khalid

Action B: Facilitating Faculty-Student Interaction and Partnerships

Approach#1: CEAS Town Hall Meetings

The fellow is looking to hold a Town Hall style meeting with CEAS leaders and students once a semester so that students can identify what resources they want from CEAS to be available to them on campus. CEAS and Stony Brook University will also have a better idea of what students are seeking to learn and tailor their academic offerings accordingly.

Goal: To foster strong student and faculty partnerships with CEAS departments

Milestones: There are more undergraduate student researchers participating in URECA as well as higher participation in the meetings as well.

Project Champion: Saba Khalid

Action C: Increasing Collaboration within Different Disciplines

Approach#1: 'Creating a multidisciplinary space on campus

The development of a multidisciplinary space on campus may take more than a couple of years to push through. The space will be an expansion of the Innovation Lab with students having access to multiple resources that vary from hardware tools to sculpting supplies. Moreover, the space will hold seminars once a month featuring or highlighting a critical and emerging field, while displaying a startup of the week to inspire students to create more. It will be a center that will essentially be the leader of anything entrepreneurial guiding students to develop their idea as well as helping them launch their company.

Goal: Develop critical partnerships with students and professors of different disciplines

Milestones: More students partnering up to work on projects at the space; senior design projects developed on multidisciplinary levels 

Project Champion: TBD

Related Links

Stony Brook University Campus Overview

Stony Brook University Official Website

Stony Brook University Innovation Lab

University Innovation Fellow: Saba Khalid