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School:North Dakota State University

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'''Innovation and Entrepreneurship'''

NDSU's '<nowiki/>''Innovation '<nowiki/>'''''Challenge''' competition is the university's most advertised effort for entrepreneurship and innovation. The 5-month annual program focuses on student innovation teams, culminating in a public exhibition and panel judging of ideas. Students form teams of their own volition and work on ideas wholly their own; the only faculty involvement is a required faculty mentor, the precise role of whom is up to the individual team. Seminars, brown-bag lunch presentations, and boot camps are peppered in through the duration of the program, allowing students to learn from industry and startup veterans alike. At the end of the judging week, a keynote speaker is brought in to network and speak to students. $27,000 is distributed amidst winning teams, to be spent however the students wish.

NDSU University Innovation Corps is a student lead club that helps to connect students to the innovation that is on campus. The club provides a stimulating environment to encourage students to pursue innovation on campus, whether it be in the form of a competition, or helping make change on campus. This club allows UI Fellows to get connected with other students on campus who also want to help improve innovation.

The '''Bison Microventure '''is a program that brings students from multiple disciplines- primarily Engineering and Biosciences but not exclusive of other majors- together to solve problems and develop a product. The group, structured into 5 separate teams of 2-3 students each, provides students the opportunity to lead and manage their own ''de facto ''mini-research teams, complete with all of the resource, expertise, and intellectual property responsibilities that come with it. BµV has been successful in generating multiple patent disclosures, numerous presentations at national events, and victories in local innovation competitions. While there have been recent vacancies in faculty, the university is working hard to fill the gaps and start this program up again.

NDSU is fortunate enough to be located in a community with a strong innovative culture. There are a number of events such as TedX, Health Pitch, and a large number of events put on by Emerging Praire such as startup weekend, start up drinks, one million cups and many others.

= Faculty Innovation and Entrepreneurship =

Aside from tenure and contractual requirements, innovation and entrepreneurship is not, to the writer's knowledge, widely promoted to faculty. The writer wishes to note that there is a growing movement on campus within faculty and leadership that hopes to change the current mindset- a movement that will no doubt find immense value in the findings of the UI fellow program and the landscape canvas. This movement gained great strength with a series of demonstrations of support, vocal and in action, by the University Present and Provost. NDSU's innovation atmosphere, I-Challenge, and select outstanding research teams have recently been mentioned consistently in the president's 'State of the University' addresses.

Faculty are encouraged to document and file all intellectual property they generate, some of which is forwarded to the TTO and processed.

= University Technology Transfer Function =

NDSU maintains a Technology Transfer office through the '''NDSU Research Foundation'''. Through the Research Foundation, faculty staff and students may file invention disclosures. These disclosures are reviewed by staff and, if determined patentable, the foundation and inventors will move forward on patenting the device, idea, or innovation- it is of note that the NDSU TTO does not discriminate or target to a specific type of innovation or inventive idea. The TTO will then attempt to license the idea- revenue from this is split between the TTO, NDSU, the inventor's department, and the inventors themselves. No particular priority is given to staff or students, individual revenue share is based solely on contribution to the project. Inventors can expect to split ~30% of the total licensed revenue between themselves.

In the event the TTO rejects the idea, NDSU releases ownership of the intellectual property to the inventors who are free to file patents on their own and thus own full share.

NDSU IP Policies are available here: [https://www.ndsu.edu/fileadmin/policy/190.pdf ~~https://www.ndsu.edu/fileadmin/policy/190.pdf]~~

The NDSU TTO, to the knowledge of the UI fellow penning this, has not made any particular student-aware effort to promote the development of intellectual property on campus. It is not yet as proactive as certain other programs around the country- the inventors are expected to come to the TTO, not the other way around.

= University-Industry Collaboration</span~~><br/~~> =

All engineering majors complete what is known as a '<nowiki/>'''capstone'''' or senior design project. This project is commonly backed financially by a local industry presence in the aim of solving a particular problem. Students form small group teams and are given one-two semesters to prepare and present a solution to the problem as best as they can. The process is assisted by regular interaction (personal and digital) with the host company as well as reporting to the student's faculty capstone mentor. It is of note that while the program does not explicitly require an innovative solution to the given problem, the use of students to provide a new, fresh way of thinking is one of the value-added services of the program for the host company.

Occasionally, students will form capstone groups with the intent to develop and market their own project. In this case, funding and resources will be limited only to donations and grants that the students and mentor can acquire from donor companies and grant programs- generally a tight budget. NDSU's engineering program is not structured to prepare students to start and run their own firms and thus, while not completely unheard of, this practice is fairly uncommon.

The College of Business offers a program known as ''''Student Consulting Teams'''.' These teams offer small business in particular the opportunity to receive the aid of students to assist and council those in their journey- the students, of course, receive experience and knowledge in return. Students are chosen by application and are not automatically assigned to a team. Instead, the student is contacted when a project that suits their experience, interest, and expertise becomes available. Through this method, assigning students with irrelevant knowledge or lack of interest can be mitigated. While this program is not explicitly innovative or entrepreneurial in nature, it does provide valuable assistance to those looking to engage in those activities in the form of expertise they may not otherwise possess.

= Regional and Local Economic Development Efforts</span~~><br/~~> =

'''InnovateND''', put on by the North Dakota Department of Commerce, is the largest and most public program for assisting in economic development via startups and innovation- it says so right in the name. The purpose of InnovateND is to provide a full kit of assistance to an idea- planning, investing, market research, etc... all of this is ''assisted'' and counseled by connections through InnovateND. It is, of course, still up to the entrepreneur to do the grunt work. In an effort to increase the utility and usefulness of the program, InnovateND recently made a key change to their program, shifting from a 'venture competition' to an educational and entrepreneurial experience.

'''The Prairie Den''' is Fargo's only open collaboration space. This second floor to a Chinese restaurant, venue, has been taking on the corner of two of the busiest streets in downtown Fargo. The region has been referred to as the miniature Silicone Valley and the inhabitants of the den are justifying that term. Simply opening space for professionals to work and bounce ideas off of each other has proven effective, it recently hit a membership milestone and has proven itself an asset to the Fargo Community.

= Other =

'''Take-Away message''': NDSU has yet to get huge innovation momentum going, but the resources are there to make it happen. By focusing on building a community of people at NDSU first and connecting them with the Fargo Startup Community we will see everything start to fall in place.

= Landscape Canvas =

[https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1Pm1ie5e6xDDB4qKJGZI7kJPH0MzPjF_fLC7bmCK85Us/edit#slide=id.gded0dd295_2_14 ~~https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1Pm1ie5e6xDDB4qKJGZI7kJPH0MzPjF_fLC7bmCK85Us/edit#slide=id.gded0dd295_2_14]~~

= Project Pitch Videos~~ ~~ =

Fall 2015 Cohort - [[|[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NS5XLLUjGeE&feature=youtu.be https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NS5XLLUjGeE&feature=youtu.be]]]

Fall 2014 Cohort -[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8_Cmm6l5iUY&feature=youtu.be ~~https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8_Cmm6l5iUY&feature=youtu.be]~~

= Fall 2017 Op-Ed Article =

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Br1V8pci25sG06EFJP0nL2GHwUx4QudK_LSdrQSL7Pc/edit?usp=sharing

= Related Links =

North Dakota State University

University Innovation Fellows

Fall 2022

Melissia Law

Cailin Shovkoplyas

Becky Bahe

Maggie Latterell

Alyssa Teubner

Emily Schubert

Fall 2017:

Cailin.shovkoplyas

2022 Cohort

9

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