Changes

Upon deep analysis of the Innovation and Entrepreneurship ecosystem on NDSU’s campus using the landscape canvas, select gaps in the ecosystem were identified. While a number of concerns, big and small, were noted, two gaps in particular have been chosen as critical areas of work to be focused on.

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

*'''RSVP:''' TBD, andrew.dalman@ndsu.edu

The first area of focus, or ‘strategy,’ is based off of the Realized section of the landscape canvas. This section deals with the ability of students to commit to an opportunity, eg; licensing a technology, forming a venture, and/or attaining legal status. A review of this section reveals that while there exist a few spaces for venture startup/incubation and a TTO for protecting intellectual property, a stark lack of funding, grant, or investment assistance presents itself.

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

*'''Description:'''

#Designate student leader to organize regular events promoting and encouraging I&E, to be held at this location. UI fellow may take a backstage role at this point, if desired. Schedule: mid Jan 2014-mid Feb 2014. Author note: this time flows quite nicely with the tail end NDSU's Innovation Challenge. The facility will ideally be up and running for the stressful last few weeks, and will additionally provide the only innovation events on campus during off-year of Innovation Challenge.

*'''Description:''' While a room with a whiteboard is enough to get us started, I'd like to expand upon that as much as possible. I'm considering this a seperate tactic as it involves going through different channels and asking for entirely different things from different people. The goal here is to network with as many higher-ups who support the movement as possible (many of whom have already been interviewed for the landscape canvas) and see what kind of extra equipment their department might be willing to lend. We're talking computers, arduinos, soldering irons, scrap metal, hot glue guns.... anything not 'required' to run the I-space but would still contribute to its usefulness. More importantly, anything not nailed down! People resources are going in this tactic as well. The I-space will require a semi-regular pool of mentors, be they faculty, community leaders, or just motivate volunteers. The purpose of this group will be to offer more everyday advice and counsel than bringing in a speaker or holding an event.

#Recruit a pool of staff/volunteers/leaders/students willing to 'exist' in the space for a few hours every week, helping studentsas necessary. Schedule: inauguration of I-space -2 weeks or so to allow for recruitment. Early December 2013.

*'''Description''': There does not currently exist any record of I&E resources on campus- when interviewing faculty and students for the Landscape Canvas, only occasionally did the same resource get mentioned twice. During creation of the canvas, I learned that while NDSU has plenty of cool people doing cool things, very few of them actually know about each other. Fewer still actually talk with each other or attempt to cooperate. We're going to fix that by compiling the most comprehensive single resource index that NDSU has ever seen- a distillation of the Landscape Canvas, with a few tweaks for organization, etc. This will truly allow anyone interested to find out what is going on around campus, the level/scale of the work, and most importantly, who to contact for more information. Think of this: an entire wiki dedicated explicitly to categorizing and displaying all of the innovative activities on campus, editable and accesible by those doing the innovation!

#Notification of all entries of their presence in the wiki. It's now their responsibility to keep their pages up to date. The objective is for the wiki to be THE resource amongst the NDSU I&E community, so groups will have motivation to keep their page up-to-date. Schedule: Launch of Wiki - 1 week, if possible. This is to allow groups to make changes to their preset pages.

It was noted upon review of the landscape canvas that NDSU I&E resources in grant, legal, and financial assistance were found sorely wanting. The ability for teams/individuals to understand how to receive funding is of paramount importance as, much as we hate to admit it, innovation generally isn't free....patents ''definitely'' aren't free, and turning an idea into a marketable product is something that can kill a project if the financials are not planned for.

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

*'''Description''': Grants like SBIRs, Venture grants, NSF grants, etc... aren't the easiest thing to just jump right into, especially considering that your main competition is established professors and businesses- heck, some of them even write grants exclusively for a living! We're going to find a diverse pool of grant recipients in and around NDSU and interview them. If possible, we'd like to review their grant as well. The objective? Distilling as much information as possible into a 'how to' guide for writing grants. Generalized, of course, but I foresee the document having a basic template of succesful grants along with at least a 'what works, what doesn't' section. With it, students will have a much better understanding of how money flows in a research environment- and how to get some for themselves.

#Finalize document. Andy is realizing, as he writes this, that a document control scheme may have to be developed in order to ensure things are kept in order and up to date. Schedule: TBD

*'''Description''': The author requests that you note the use of 'management' vs. 'protection.' Currently, there is little understanding amongst students that work they do that utilizes 'significant university resources' qualifies as university property. The native stance of the IP management system here is to ''protect'' all IP generated, not to''manage and distribute'' it. We hope that, by working with the Tech Transfer Office and university higher-ups, a more transparent system can be developed... one that can be explained to students quickly and efficiently. Most importantly, the delivery system for getting the knowledge to students has to be structured in such a manner that it doesn't scare them off!  Barring the ability to get the TTO more involved in proactively assisting with student IP, we at least hope to provide students with a seminar, guide, etc... on what exactly the relationship between them, their work, and the university actually is.

#Formally launching a 'fast track to business creation' (name definitely not final!) program, or at least being able to feature it as one of the services of the I-space. Schedule: Spring semester 2015. Reason: The fulfillment of this tactic requires that almost every other tactic listed thus far be fairly well completed before it can be done. This is also one of the more ambitious tactics in play, banking on the success of the I-space and cooperation between multiple departments.