Changes

Through our interviews, we found that many students on campus have a fear of judgment. For example, students during a lecture will not answer questions even though they might know the answer. This happens because they fear being judged, in case they are wrong. This fear also seems to translate into not coming up and/or expressing new innovative ideas. The students fear that others may think their idea is silly or will not work. We think that an environment that allows students to express themselves would be helpful to promote flow of ideas and discussions.

To that end, we would like to propose that a "20,000 pitches" day be held on campus. The idea would be to encourage students to speak about either an idea they are passionate about, or a problem they would like to solve. The next step would be identify the top passions and ideas expressed through a voting system for campus students, and grouping students based on common themes. This would lay the groundwork for elimating fear of judgement, increasing interdisciplinary participation, and increasing enthusiasm for identifying problems and implementing solutions. While a detailed timeline needs to be established, the project can be implemented over Spring 2015