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Going through the training to become University Innovation Fellow, we had a great opportunity to get out of the building and talk to large amount of students and faculty member from across the campus and map out our campus landscape and recognize some of the major shortcomings that need to be addressed. One of our findings was that students are not very aware of the resources and possiblities the E&I community can offer them at Dalhousie and Halifax. Although, some students are aware of some societies, events and spaces that are offered to them, majority of the students are in the mindset that the resources are mostly for business students at Dalhousie. This creates a lack of cross-faculty interaction under E&I.
The Sexton Engineering Campus at Dalhousie University is physically isolated from the main campus, Studley. This hinders the opportunity for full collaboration within the main campus. We believe that cross-faculty collaboration is essential for further growth of our startup ecosystem. A great example of this is a company called Spring Loaded, where three students from various faculties met in the Starting Lean Course, came up with an idea for a new generation of knee braces and rose over $1.8 million in seed financing to date. In addition to that, Dalhousie university is commited to make engineering campus for the upcoming $64M Innovation hub, IDEA project.
Dalhousie Entrepreneurship Society (D.E.S.) has done tremendous work in the short amount of time they have had since the society was created. Most of the activities and events that we will host will be under D.E.S. because it will give us the platform and power to be in touch with students who have shown some interest in E&I. The D.E.S. will be our main hub that will allow us to get funding and reach the maximum number of students, stakeholder and investors. Our main goal this year is to get increased involvement from students, and for that, we need some funding to be able to bring value to them where they will have the incentive to join our society and take part in our activities.
In addition, we are currently in the process of creating new By-Laws and a more comprehensive Constitution to enable us fully establish ourselves as the leading student-led organization promoting Entrepreneurship and Innovation on Campus and help us seek further funding opportunities.
= Strategy #3 - "Collider Space " in the Library (Innovation space in Killam Library) =
The Collider is a multipurpose space in Killam Library for the collision of serendipitous ideas where from all academic and professional disciplines can come together to develop ideas and and create the future generation of innovators. The Collider connect students, local startups, mentors, investors and allows them to work together to help further grow the local startup ecosystem. Killam Library is the least-siloed space on the campus and place where people come together. It is in our best interest to help push this initiative to its full potential.
== Tactic no.1: Series of Hackathons, Events & Conferences ==
The Collider would serve a great venue for a series of student-led Hackathonshackathons, Events events & Conferencesconferences. The university does not currently host any regular hackathons for students, and that is something that needs to be changed. Our idea is to host a monthly hackathon with a different theme each month. One month it can be for ocean science and ocean projects, while another month it can be a computer science hackathon, and possibly a medical science hackathon. These hackathons will serve as a great place for students who have ideas in each of these disciples to come together and work on them.
Events and coferences are in our long term plan, but we definitely plan on hosting at least one big event a year to showcase the amazing students who have come up with innovative ideas for each year.
By allowing students to specify their roles for the specified events, workshops, contests, projects etc. in the co-curricular record will build the desire of wanting to engage more and be a part of something. This way students can have an attachment to the event, workshop etc. they took a part in.
= <span style="font-size: 12px;">Strategy #6 5 – Promote the use of The Collider</span> =
== Tactic no.1: Hosting regular workshops in order to get students more informed and engaged about E&I ==
We would like to enable students to use physical office/home supplies to create their prototypes right in the collider during the workshops, events, or contests. This will allow students to create a physical prototype and get one step closer to the final product.
= Strategy #5 6 – Hold More Student-Lead Hackathons on a Regular Basis =
We want to challenge the idea that hackathons are only tech-related. In order to get students from all backgrounds and faculties involved, we have to host hackathons for different disciplines like a hackathon for computer science, one for health sciences and another for ocean science. Dalhousie Entrepreneurship Society held the first student-led hackathon for Oceanography and Marine programs Hackamarine 2015. Hackamarine is going to be an annual event held at Dalhousie University, a school well known for its world-class Marine & Oceanography programs. This is a cross-faculty event aiming to bring talent from various fields to work on major problems in Oceans & Marine Sciences. The winning teams took home a cumulative total of $5,000 in prizes.