Change Forward 2020-21

CHANGE

FORWARD Visions and Voices of Higher Education’s Future

Illustrations by Hannah Broadway

ectives d persp d n a ts c an roje Fellows tion of p A collec sity Innovation candidates s er

by Univ novation Fellow In Faculty

CHANGE FORWARD Visions and Voices of Higher Education’s Future

A collection of projects and perspectives

by University Innovation Fellows and Faculty Innovation Fellows candidates

Illustrations by Hannah Broadway Design by Laurie Moore

contents Welcome by the University Innovation Fellows team ..................................................................9

CLASSES & PROGRAMS Fellows’ project updates .................................................................................12 Creativity School: Learn, Make, Share

by Oğuzhan Aygören, Boğazici University . .................................................................16

We’ve Outgrown the Way We Teach and Learn

by Rishelle Wimmer and Thomas Grundnigg, FH Salzburg . .............................................18

A Liberal Arts Approach to Promote Innovation and Entrepreneurship

by Nicholas Ooi, Lingnan University .......................................................................20

Your Limitation Is Your imagination. All You Need is an Ignition.

by Balaji Ramanujam and Vijaya Lakshmi Udayagiri, Madanapalle Institute of Technology & Science . ......................................................................................22

designTech Programming Adds to Students’ Repertoire of Solution Tools

by Lisa Casper, Michigan Technological University .......................................................24

COMMUNITIES Fellows’ project updates . ................................................................................28 Helping Students Stand on Their Own Feet

by La Selene Dommu, Aditya College of Engineering and Technology . .................................30 A Manifesto for “Learning to Become….”

by Mirna Mattjik, Colorado School of Mines ...............................................................31

Self-Design Your Student Journey Experience

by Magdalena Ionescu, Sophia University..................................................................32

CONNECTIONS Fellows’ project updates . ................................................................................ 36

EVENTS Fellows’ project updates . ................................................................................40 Influencing Students to Become Advocates on Campus

by Ryan Chapman, Joey Gruber, Marissa Morales and Lavanya Uppala, University of Nebraska at Omaha ...........................................................................44

OPERATIONS & STUDENT LIFE Fellows’ project updates . ................................................................................48 Smart Teaching for Theoretical Knowledge and Improving Practical Oriented Knowledge

by Aditya Shasank PSKPVS, Aditya College of Engineering .............................................53

Change Hand in Hand with Technology by İrem Nur Bulut, Koç University ..........................................................................55

Igniting the Creative Spark of Entrepreneurship

by Alyssa Martina, Elon University .........................................................................56

Where Can Your Students Go Innovate? Map It Out for Them!

by Charles M. Wood, The University of Tulsa ..............................................................58

Shock This Space!

by Darren DeFrain, Wichita State University ..............................................................60

SPACES Fellows’ project updates . ................................................................................ 64 Inspiring Others by Forging Your Path

by Nelson Fernandes, Southern Illinois University Carbondale .........................................65

The Ingenuity Hub

by Jeff Chamberlain, University of North Florida .........................................................66

PERSPECTIVES A Faculty-Led Movement Inspired by Students

by Ilya Avdeev, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee; Mary Raber, Michigan Technological University; Miriam Iliohan, University of Twente; and Nick Swayne, James Madison University ...................................................70

You Don’t Have to Be “A Creative” to Think Creatively

by Brittany Gesell, Fordham University . ....................................................................72

Entrepreneurial Passion: A Slowly Smoldering Fire?

by Malte Krohn, Hamburg University of Technology .....................................................73

Iterative Mindset

by Mae White, IE University .................................................................................76

There Is No One Who Can Do What You Do

by María Josefina Martinez Calero, Universidad Católica del Uruguay . ...............................77

The Gradual Growth of a Change Agent

by Marcela C. Yeckle Damian, Universidad de Ingeniería y Tecnología ................................78

The Hidden View of Engineering

by Mirella Rivas, Universidad de Ingeniería y Tecnología . ...............................................79

“No” Is the New “Yes” for Changemakers

by Carolina Vassallucci, Universidad de Montevideo .....................................................80

Daring to Dream Bigger

by Maria Romina Dominzain de Leon, Universidad de Montevideo . ...................................81

A Guide to Sharing Your Work

by Jeni Weber, University of Alabama at Birmingham ...................................................83

Navigating Higher Education Using Complexity Thinking

by Harrison Kellick, University of Technology Sydney ....................................................85

The Ethical Design of Empathy

by Jessica Aldrich, Wichita State University, University of Florida .....................................86

INDEX .........................................................................................................88

about ABOUT US The University Innovation Fellows program empowers students and faculty to become leaders of change in higher education. Members of our global community are leading a movement to ensure that all students gain the attitudes, skills and knowledge required to navigate a complex world.

The University Innovation Fellows is a program of Stanford University’s Hasso Plattner Institute of Design (d.school).

Learn more at universityinnovationfellows.org.

FREQUENTLY USED TERMS University Innovation Fellows Students who are trained to analyze opportunities for change at their schools and create activities, spaces, classes and more

Faculty Champions Faculty, staff and program leaders who serve as mentors of University Innovation Fellows

Faculty Innovation Fellows A community of Faculty Champions who are taking part in a two-year journey to design and implement change projects

letter from the team We don’t need to tell you that the last year has been a challenging one for learners, teachers and the whole of higher education around the world. Faced with everything from health concerns to dwindling enrollment to the forced transition to remote learning, colleges and universities have had to pivot and adapt quickly. In our experience, we’ve found that times of great challenge can also be times of great opportunity when we have the right mindsets and tools.

Every year, we work with hundreds of students and educators to help them make a difference in higher ed. Our University Innovation Fellows program trains students to become campus leaders who create new learning opportunities for peers at their schools. Our new Faculty Innovation Fellows program (learn more on page 70) creates a community of like-minded teachers who collaborate with Fellows to design new ways of engaging their learners.

During the pandemic, we have been especially proud of these amazing bright minds in our community.

Despite the challenges they faced, they continued to meet, plan, and make change happen for the benefit of others.

In this journal, we celebrate these projects and the people who are working so hard to help their schools navigate the ambiguity of these times. This, like much of what we do, is an experiment; it’s our first published collection of projects and perspectives. These pages contain detailed goals and plans related to the challenges identified by our student University Innovation Fellows and Faculty Innovation Fellows candidates.

They’re grouped in broad categories for the sake of easy reading, but many projects serve several purposes.

By the time this is printed, some of these projects will have evolved, some will have been implemented, some will have been scrapped, and new projects will be in progress. All of this content represents valuable learning and growth on the part of the students and faculty.

We hope this publication also serves to highlight the state of higher education today: what students need, and what we are doing to ensure that all learners are prepared. Because, as we found out in the last year and a half, we never know what will come. We can’t let the future happen to us. We need to shape the future we want to see.

Thank you to our entire family of Fellows and Faculty Champions for making this publication possible, and for giving us the best reason to do the work that we do.

The University Innovation Fellows Team Leticia Britos Cavagnaro Humera Fasihuddin Lupe Makasyuk Laurie Moore Ghanashyam S Hasso Plattner Institute of Design (d.school) Stanford University

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classes & programs 2020 was the year of frantic course redesign, as many educators were required to translate in-person classes to an online format. Although the dust has somewhat settled, our Fellows and faculty have continued to apply their experimental mindsets to reimagine both physical and online classes at their schools.

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BUCKNELL UNIVERSITY Colleen Hull I am working towards the creation of a half-credit course for students within the College of Management at Bucknell. This course would function as a rotational career course in which students would gain exposure to different internship and career paths within Management so that they may better navigate the internship application process later in their college careers. This idea came to fruition as a result of my own experiences of not knowing what I was interested in pursuing. This problem is not unique to me. I know that students within the college would benefit greatly from the creation of a course where they would learn about internship options through alumni volunteers.

Nicholas DeMarchis

GEORGIA INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY

ISTANBUL TECHNICAL UNIVERSITY

Cole Campbell

Selin Yılmaz

I am working with a past Georgia Tech Fellow with a Puerto Rican incubator, Parallel 18, to teach design thinking to Puerto Rican entrepreneurs.

My focus is designing a talent transfer program in the ITU Centre for Innovation and Entrepreneurship (GINOVA). I shifted to this from an earlier focus of establishing an interface structure within GINOVA as a result of insightful interviews that I conducted with student project teams, boundary spanners from fellow universities, and high-tech companies that are eager to take part in my project. In the spring semester, the first step that I will undertake will be the creation and management of the student database pool at ITU GINOVA. In that semester, we will also build a mentor pool that contains academicians and graduates.

Cole Campbell, Yuma Tanaka We have been working closely with what’s called a Vertically Integrated Project, taught through Design Bloc. The class aims to expose students to design concepts, regardless of their major, in a course that focuses on social impact within the local community.

The topic for the Fall 2020 - Spring 2021 semesters is to help a local community tackle the continual build-up of trash within their neighborhoods and creeks.

I am working to implement an anti-racism course that would be part of the first-year curriculum. This has been previously implemented at the University of Pittsburgh, and especially due to the movement for racial justice, I felt it important that Bucknell also ensures that each student has a similar baseline knowledge of our nation’s history and important steps to take today against active and systemic racism.

COLORADO SCHOOL OF MINES Regan Sampson I’m very interested in the mental health issues that my university faces. I decided that a mental health workshop or class with a design or science aspect would interest students at my mainly engineering college. I gathered information from various professors and staff at my college, and I learned that this would be hard to tackle as a student. Thankfully, our UIF champion Professor Mirna Mattjik decided to take me on. Professor Mattjik is working with another professor at Mines to develop a class focused on stress, anxiety, mental illness, and depression while looking at the different parts of the brain involved. The class will allow students to focus on their own wellbeing and discover new things about themselves. My role in this class is to act as an observer as well as give input from a student’s perspective. I attend class, as well as meetings between professors. I am learning about the inner workings of the mind and how to create a class on something that I am passionate about.

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GEORGIA INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY Madison Lovelace, Tynan Purdy

Our project, the Faculty Learning Initiative at Georgia Tech, intends to change faculty culture on campus to one that is ripe with interdisciplinary collaboration. The leadership at Georgia Tech is aware of a lack of collaboration amongst its faculty. The Design Bloc intends to identify and understand the roots of the issue, such as a tendency to silo as well as incentives in the tenure track structure, which have resulted in the current lack of collaborative work.

The Faculty Learning Initiative will manifest in a faculty training program to teach new faculty the value of design thinking and collaborative research. Design Bloc will create and teach a curriculum to faculty, and execute any other measures necessary to shift the faculty culture on campus.

KHALIFA UNIVERSITY OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY Amna Alqahtani The campus project that I have worked on is the Interpersonal Skills and Self-Development Educational Program. This program will be given to undergraduate students in every semester of freshman level. The Program is critical especially to freshman students who recently joined the university.

The main objective of the program is the more developed student social skills the more chances to satisfactorily deal with the demands of different environments and interlocutors. That being the case the university should include interpersonal development as part of its academic goals.

LOUISIANA TECH UNIVERSITY Abigail Hildenbrand, Courtney Wessels, Jatavion Jackson, Kayley Kraig The 2020 and 2019 cohorts decided to work on an undecided major program in partnership with our university’s career center. In this initiative, we are working to help students who are undecided in their major to understand the different areas of study on campus. Our campus career center offers an assessment called Focus2 which combines one’s strengths, weaknesses, values, and more to result in different careers and majors that fit. Our goal was to create awareness among students about the opportunities that are offered at Tech in the field of future careers. As a result of our efforts, we had a total of 48 students, freshmen making up over half, sign up for career center resources, and a plan to continue this outreach in the Fall.

LOYOLA UNIVERSITY MARYLAND Christina Gambrell, Hannah Mannering, Meghan Oddy, Natalia Medina Lozada We are working on a system/mentoring program that will be directed towards students of color in STEM to support them through their years at Loyola University Maryland. In this project, freshmen and sophomores pursuing STEM would be assigned juniors and seniors to be their mentors. In this project, we have to outline the exact structure of how we plan to pair STEM students with mentors. These mentors would ideally be already pursuing research at Loyola, that way the younger student can shadow their research project.

KHALIFA UNIVERSITY OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY Ruba Ayman Nasser (2018 UIF cohort)

Traditional teaching using lectures is essentially a one-way journey: knowledge takes off in the instructor’s mind and we hardly know whether and how it lands in students’ minds. Modern systems have taught us that synchronization is fundamental for communication and reliable information exchange. Learn Smartly (learn-smartly.com) is a technology that respects this concept by allowing students to control their learning process and synchronize the knowledge flow. I teamed up with a faculty at my school, and we created this platform based on a pedagogical framework for active, lecture-free learning using a learning management system, YouTube, various web resources, as well as hardware and software development kits. The results of the learning analytics don’t only show that our students are highly engaged and performing better, but they have very positive perceptions of this learning method. Learn Smartly is a free platform for engineering students. It is currently used at two German universities (Darmstadt and Passau) as well as at Khalifa University in Abu Dhabi.

MENLO COLLEGE

SWARTHMORE COLLEGE

Basil Merk, Courtney Cooper, Dez Frazier, Esteban Ramirez

Edward Tranter, Fiorenza Herrera Diaz, Haron Mwangangi Kalii

Our project (one of three) is “EQ 101,” a new course with the purpose to make students emotionally intelligent leaders, meaning helping students to truly become ready for the world after college. This course has the goal to enrich a college education with social skills, life and self-development skills, being able to show vulnerability, and being able to work comfortably in a diverse environment.

Our team created the CIL Design Studio housed in the Center for Innovation and Leadership. This seven-week training on design thinking helps students take an idea and develop it into a project. We noticed that Swarthmore has many avenues for students to receive funding for personal projects. However, there is not enough assistance to help students turn their ideas into something tangible. We took the 13

skills and knowledge gained from our UIF training to create an intensive training that would allow students to develop their ideas.

We had a cohort of six students and met every week for an hour. By the end of the training, each student turned their ideas into a project that addresses the problem they chose. The Design Studio will continue to run throughout the coming school year.

UNIVERSIDAD DE INGENIERÍA Y TECNOLOGÍA Marcela Yeckle, Mirella Rivas, Thalí­a Leyton, Valeria Aguay Our team is designing the first Technology Transfer course at our university. This course will be offered to students of all UTEC majors so that they can learn the process of how to transform their classroom inventions into successful innovations available in the market. During 2021, we have collaborated with the Academic Projects area, and we are about to start an intensive one-month workshop that will serve as our pilot program. This workshop will be given in June to UTEC students qualified to take their “Real Life Experience” (RLE) course. We hope that with this workshop, they can take better advantage of the projects they do during their RLE.

UNIVERSITY OF NEBRASKA AT OMAHA Joey Gruber, Lavanya Uppala, Marissa Morales, Ryan Chapman

UNIVERSIDAD DE INGENIERÍA Y TECNOLOGÍA Danae Chipoco, Diego Muñoz, Valeria Aguayo

We are working on a program called “The Way” that creates opportunities for junior and senior students to design their professional future and find a vocation (based on the book “Designing Your Life” from Bill Burnett & Dave Evans). In the workshops we will help them discover the activities they are more interested in and what they are going to work to have a future they are passionate about.

This will be done with dynamic materials and resources. Moreover, we are working on individual workshops for freshmen and sophomore students to help them design their career paths within the university and their major. In workshops we have done, the participants said it helped them realize they need to focus on the activities they are more interested in and what they are going to work to have a future they are passionate about.

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We are currently prototyping and testing a paid internship project. We saw a need for students to be part of the decision making process with administration, so we wanted to see if it was possible to create a structure with year-long projects alongside a staff member of their choice. In order to make this actionable we created short, middle, and long-term goals for how we could slowly incorporate it into the university. We held a prototype workshop in December where students were able to solve problems related to learning during a pandemic. We are also in the process of creating a threeday paid change-making workshop that was approved by our administration. After the workshop, we anticipate launching a student organization where those who attended the workshop could work exclusively on their projects and see if it could implement it on campus. Lastly, with the support of faculty we would create paid internships for these students. See page 44 for more details on the paid workshop.

UTAH VALLEY UNIVERSITY Ashley Belnap, Elijah Allred, Nick Omori, Tori Hooper We are implementing a Center for Innovation and Excellence on campus and creating a team of “Innovation Catalysts.”

The catalysts work to manage projects for students to work on. Projects can come from areas on campus or businesses that we will partner with. Catalysts will work on projects as well as help other students to find them. We are creating an innovation program for UVU students, including an innovation certificate which involves design thinking, systems thinking, and lean start-up principles. We are utilizing multiple partnerships to create an online curriculum for this program. The curriculum will include interpersonal principles for working in a team, education on how to apply a specific discipline inside of a project-based framework (including mentoring from faculty), and a small “capstone” project.

VIDYAVARDHAKA COLLEGE OF ENGINEERING Avinash Arun Nadig, Krishnakanth Pai While analyzing our landscape canvas during UIF training, it came to our attention that our college has a very high number of students and alumni who are entrepreneurs due to the resources provided through the college’s entrepreneurship cell ASPERA. Yet most students struggle to find meaningful internships through and outside our institution. This for us created a gap we thought we could fill. Hence, we created the project “Intern Hub.” This is essentially a student driven internship program wherein we would utilize alumni connections to get our students meaningful internship opportunities at companies that will grow and learn with our interns. After a few months of us becoming Fellows, we even got a chance to collaborate with the training and placement cell of our institution to help solve problems regarding the same. We were asked to be a review committee of sorts wherein we could monitor the system and help suggest changes that would help it become more efficient.

Credit Hannah Broadway

VIDYAVARDHAKA COLLEGE OF ENGINEERING Avinash Arun Nadig, Krishnakanth Pai, Numaan Daulatabad, Varsha Chandrashekar

The campus project we decided to take up after the training was creating a course “Management, Entrepreneurship and Design Thinking.” It would basically be a subject which would replace the current subject of “Management and Entrepreneurship” in our institution. As our institution is currently an autonomous one, we have the freedom to enhance the syllabus by adding what’s necessary and to improvise. So pouncing on that opportunity, we decided to introduce a concept of Design Thinking and make this course more experiential rather than theoretical. Our draft of the syllabus and content to be included in the course is under review and is planned to come into effect by 2022.

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CREATIVITY SCHOOL: LEARN, MAKE, SHARE Embedding creative and entrepreneurial thinking into the school-wide curriculum

By Oğuzhan Aygören Assistant Professor of Marketing, Entrepreneurship and Innovation, Boğazici University Faculty Innovation Fellows candidate

The formal education system makes us rely on analytical thinking and puts limits on what we know and achieve. However, as Einstein has famously said: “Logic takes us from A to B, but imagination takes us to anywhere.” Instead of knowing, we should focus more on learning. A wise man knows he knows nothing yet, a layman knows everything. So, the Creativity School project aims to nurture the creativity skills of individuals. While doing that, creative thinking and teaching methods are applied by a diverse range of instructors including students and professors. Also, these methods are embedded in multidisciplinary courses with diverse participants in any subject. Teaching itself becomes creative where the chakras of participants open and they unleash the preexisting limits on their creativity.

Almost all people, even the most educated ones, talk from memory with preexisting statements in line with their beliefs. So, the only thing that separates educated and uneducated minds is mostly memorization of different arguments. Producing original ideas and owning those is a rare occasion. At the same time, it is an act of courage and confidence. People are afraid of creative thinking. Forget about execution of creativity, they are even afraid of thinking. Afraid of losing their beliefs, afraid of getting lost in real life, afraid of authority not giving permission. However, the most important tool of advancement and improvement is ideas, products and actions that are independent from the existing order and mostly contrary to the status quo. Therefore, creativity, imagination and inspiration are both exciting and frightening. It needs guts to do those. Like an artist.

Indeed, creativity is a skill that needs to be learned from artists. In the school and education system, creativity has a very limited area. Unfortunately, this leads people who go through the formal education lathe to become more mechanical and more angular.

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Creativity starts with dreaming, wondering, questioning, understanding, empathizing and learning. Then, the execution stage is quite analytical. Like an artist who knows in what ratios to use the colors with which brush strokes. In that sense, the artist is also like the chemist. She measures, experiments, fails, learns, tries.

Or she is like a physicist who knows how hard to hit the canvas with which brush and how long the brush stroke should last. However, what distinguishes the artist from the physicist or chemist is not only knowing how the mechanisms work but also adding beauty, aesthetics, form and soul. That’s why the design thinking mindset is becoming more popular within business and engineering communities. Today, it is not enough to produce and sell a product. It is expected to be beautiful, smart, aesthetic and create a “wow”. The way to do that is both understanding and observing the outside world and also heading towards one’s inside world to combine logic with feelings and emotions.

The world has become more uncertain, volatile, ambiguous and complex than before. Knowledge and knowing used to be the most important, but today, constant, fast learning is important. Because we admit that we can not know more than Google.

Now, it is time for wisdom in this information noise and clutter. Wisdom is about identifying, filtering and combining the relevant knowledge. So, it is imperative to produce novel and creative works and ideas. The business world is trying to increase productivity by 10%, 20%, 30% with industrialization. However, the entrepreneurship and innovation world is aiming to disrupt everything by 10 times, 20 times, 30 times by resetting what we know and searching for the quest of the ideal final result. If not for a wild idea, Bitcoin, iPhone or Cybertruck would not even have been possible. This is

Credit agsandrew / shutterstock

the freedom to think in terms of moonshots and this is what moves us forward and onward.

When we give everyone the exact same education, it is normal that the output is similar. However, the leaders and the pioneers in the society are the people who find, become aware of and improve themselves like plants that grow in impossible places. What if we give everyone the chance to be like those plants? What if we provide the means and tools for everyone to be free and unique? What if we provide more opportunity and facility for improvement?

Our creativity school project is open to everyone who is aware of his/her own moulds and would like to step up to change that. It welcomes people from all ages, all disciplines and all professions. Even, the more diversity, the better it is. Creativity school is not an alternative to the existing school curriculum. On the contrary, it is like a complementary layer which improves underutilized creativity skills.

In the creativity school, classes have 12 participants.

Each participant is at a different age with a different background. Teams are composed of people from students in different departments and alumni from different professions. These teams are given challenges to improve their skills in learning, making and sharing. In addition to challenges, they get some core and elective courses like in a minor program. The program might include learning skills of observation, asking good questions, experimentation, researching and courses like behavioral economics, game theory and logic. Those courses and skills already exist in the university. We just need to extract it out and re-frame what we have for creating a wild output. For each course, the important thing is producing exercises and projects which help to improve creative thinking

skills. In addition, artists are also invited and asked to share their experience, intuition and creative wisdom.

It would be really amazing to combine the participants with impressive and inspiring people.

These courses and exercises can also be online as well. For that purpose, each team needs a mentor who closely monitors and communicates. In terms of physical space, it would be fun and playful to have a spacious building with tall ceilings. The place should also encourage wild ideas and allow experimentation.

Why should creativity school be of any interest to participants and the university?

Many people are so busy. They work a lot yet they do not produce anything. The way to produce unique and meaningful work beyond being busy requires a mindset outside of regular, normal and widely accepted. Although many people think about those, they do not have the courage to question and produce because of the fear and lack of confidence. Creativity school will give confidence to individuals questioning the fundamental assumptions and finding novel ways of thinking. So, it could be possible to embrace moonshot thinking and come up with something ten times better than existing beyond improving it.

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WE’VE OUTGROWN THE WAY WE TEACH AND LEARN It’s time to change. Here’s how.

By Rishelle Wimmer, Senior Lecturer, Information Technology and Systems Management and Thomas Grundnigg, Senior Lecturer, Multi-Media Arts FH Salzburg University of Applied Sciences Faculty Innovation Fellows candidates

When presenting a scale model of his newly designed future education center, Derek Zoolander asks the question, “How can we be expected to teach children... if they can’t even fit inside the building?” For us, the building is a metaphor for our current educational structures, and the message is clear: we’ve outgrown our 20th century system of higher ed.

To initiate the change we want to see on our campus, we designed the eXploratorium — a center for the curious learner. Currently, we are engaged in a three-stepplan to realize our vision by: (1) developing options, (2) establishing a community of courage and practice, and (3) cultivating curiosity.

Objectively we wish for students to be adventurous and explore the unknown. While we harbor hope that they will acquire talents for innovation and develop the flexibility needed to navigate uncertainty, their university experience often runs contrary to those aims.

Students experience limited opportunities to exercise their curiosity, and educators have few options for rewarding risk-taking. Instead we persist in offering a rigid curriculum, and evaluate progress in increments of how well learners conform to established methods.

At this time, when information is ubiquitous, we need to transform the current system of higher ed into one that awakens an innate interest in learning.

STEP 1 — DEVELOPING OPTIONS

We are born curious. And curiosity is the force that drives us to learn and explore. But curiosity is fragile.

Many students arrive at university with a diminished readiness to dive into new learning experiences wholeheartedly. How can we cultivate curiosity and ignite confidence to venture into the unknown? Cultivating curiosity calls for freedom to explore interests, take action, and work in a safe-space where risks can be taken and mistakes made. Even as we aspire to a new paradigm of teaching and learning, we acknowledge that change is frightening for our institutions. Challenging the status quo inevitably provokes push-back.

Self-reliance is not enough, it takes a community of courage and practice to realize progress and break free from constraints.

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Recognizing the need for students and faculty to pursue topics of interest with meaningful objectives in a variety of learning settings, the center for the curious provides space to explore teaching and learning options that complement and supplement the existing curriculum. Designed for multidisciplinary use, these settings are situated beyond current departmental structures. While some course offerings are experiential and project based in nature, others are designed to reinforce subjects commonly taught in degree programs (i.e. social competences, academic writing, research methods, digital literacy skills, project management, etc.), as well as a catalog of subjects not currently available to all degree programs (i.e. politics, economics, ethics, cultural diversity, etc.).

STEP 2 — ESTABLISHING A COMMUNITY OF COURAGE AND PRACTICE In the process of developing new learning situations, we’ve attracted educators and students invested in creating new pathways at our university. Establishing a dynamic and collaborative community of practice has been a positive side-effect of developing options. Our

Credit Thomas Grundnigg, based on illustration by John Tenniel

aim is to multiply opportunities for participation, where students can direct their educational pathways, and educators can explore topics and methods that transcend curricular restraints. Having the freedom to choose to opt-in, is an important hallmark of the eXploratorium.

With a focus on incremental change, these ideas are gaining traction throughout our university.

STEP 3 — CULTIVATING CURIOSITY Empowering our community of learners to be active seekers of knowledge and understanding is our pursuit.

Awakening them from complacency and the lethargy of resignation — after being told no, it’s not possible and that we can’t — is our device.

Our focus is to arrange learning situations that engage curiosity. When learners are encouraged to take agency and seek deeper understanding, they discover the unexpected. It is through the active pursuit of compelling goals that we experience a shift in perspective, activating motivational forces that energize us, enticing us out of our comfort zone and transforming our behavior.

curiosity while sparking confidence to venture into the unknown. Here, the curious learner encounters an atmosphere where the freedom to experiment in collaboration with others, encourages actions that lead to impactful change. Students and educators stay curious, as they strive for knowledge and develop the ability to navigate the challenges of uncertain futures.

Even though the constraints of our institutions may act as limits to our agency, we are prepared to rewrite the rules to escape those confines. Let’s venture together as a curious community of courage and practice, beyond the barriers of our curriculum, to discover places rich in knowledge and explore the future of teaching and learning. #staycurious We appreciate the FH Salzburg Future Fund and the Faculty Innovation Fellows at Stanford d.school for supporting our project development.

The directive is – go find your interest, the problem you want to solve, the concept you would like to understand, the skill you want to acquire. Then work for what you want. Cultivate your curiosity and search without dependence on a preprogrammed algorithm. Learn to figure things out for your own satisfaction, all the while being guided by capable experts. The eXploratorium — a center for the curious — is the place.

The eXploratorium aspires to a new paradigm of teaching and learning, one designed to cultivate 19

A LIBERAL ARTS APPROACH TO PROMOTE INNOVATION AND ENTREPRENEURSHIP Empowering Lingnan University innovators to make a positive impact in the community

By Nicholas Ooi Programme Manager, Lingnan Entrepreneurship Initiative, Lingnan University Faculty Innovation Fellows candidate

The launch of Lingnan Entrepreneurship Initiatives (LEI) in 2018 made it clear that Lingnan is determined to encourage entrepreneurship and innovation in its staff and students, and inspire them to become game-changers who positively impact the whole community.

Since 2018, 11 students from Lingnan University have joined the University Innovation Fellows (UIF) programme. At the very beginning, the innovation and entrepreneurship (I&E) ecosystem wasn’t well established, and almost no one talked about being an entrepreneur or creating something new. Each academic year, Fellows developed a different approach to improve the I&E ecosystem on campus with methods including Design Thinking workshops, I&E Exploration Day, Sign Language workshops and more. As a Liberal Arts institution, Lingnan University offers a perfect foundation for innovation and entrepreneurship because our students learn to look beyond disciplinary boundaries and envision new possibilities. To promote the concept of Sustainable Development Goals, which the United Nations suggested, Fellows worked on different service-learning and community engagement projects. During their services, they also saw the importance of using Design Thinking to cultivate innovative thinking on campus and in the community.

During an interview, our Fellow, Max Wong, also mentioned, “This project introduced Design Thinking, which helps generate innovative ideas. Furthermore, we anticipated that students could feel empowered and bring positive impacts to their community.” Dickson Cheng also said that “it is valuable for students to equip themselves with Design Thinking skills that are widely recognized in business and academic fields worldwide.” One research study the Fellows have conducted 20

also suggests that Lingnan students are interested in entrepreneurship but lack motivation and support.

The study showed 56.6% out of 51 participants had a positive attitude towards their dreams but were only at the beginning stage in achieving them. This helped us realize that students need more empowerment and help when executing their visions.

Some students use service-learning activities to create more sustainable social enterprise simultaneously, and this is what we want to see in Design Thinking. Design Thinking emphasizes five different processes: empathy, definition, ideation, prototypes and testing, and in the end, the idea becomes a whole rounded practice. I joined Lingnan University 11 years ago, and I have witnessed the changes in both the university and students caused by advances in technology and the LEI influence in innovation and entrepreneurship training. The LEI team organized the first ever Asia Design Innovation Gallery in 2019 to engage academic staff members who are interested to adopt Design Thinking in their teaching around Hong Kong and Asia Pacific Region.

Lingnan University is the one and only university located in the New Territory West of Hong Kong, which is also in the center of the Greater Bay Area of China.

The location itself plays a unique role in connecting with the community, especially in the sub-urban area of Hong Kong, Macao, and Chu Hai of China. Currently, because the innovation hub of Hong Kong is in Kowloon Districts and Hong Kong Island Districts, the New Territory West Districts are often neglected. Setting up an I&E hub at Lingnan University is a strategic move to promote the concept of Social Innovation and Inclusive Entrepreneurship. It allows members of the New Territory West Districts and the Greater Bay Area of China to use our facilities. Inclusive Entrepreneurship means that anyone

Courtesy of Nicholas Ooi

can become an entrepreneur as long as they can access proper training, funding, and encouragement. This approach could promote inclusion both for entrepreneurs and their clients in the following ways.

For the Inclusive Entrepreneurship Project, we hope to create businesses together with the service users.

Usually with social enterprises, we set up a company and serve people in need. In this initiative, we build the business up with the people in need, say, with the elderly, bringing them extra financial and social benefits such as engagement with the community.

We also aim to create more social entrepreneurs on campus, because as a liberal arts university, we are committed to developing social innovation ecosystems with students to provide more value to the community.

The LEI will take lead in launching this project in the New Territories West of Hong Kong and hope to benefit more than 5,000 beneficiaries.

Entrepreneurship is a practical manifestation of liberal arts students’ creative mindset. We train our students to become social entrepreneurs who create innovative, functional, and sustainable solutions to real-world problems. Our University Innovation Fellows act as ambassadors on campus and connect students with the community, inspiring students to take more risks and be more collaborative. The Fellows play a significant role in making these changes step by step.

Innovation, entrepreneurship, and Design Thinking are crucial, as these skills and mindsets inspire students to take more risks and be more collaborative.

Ideation with the elders, courtesy of Nicholas Ooi

Lingnan’s liberal arts education offers the perfect foundation for innovation and entrepreneurship because our students learn to look beyond disciplinary boundaries to envision new possibilities. They are always ready for a new change.

Looking to the future, especially after the pandemic, moving towards the new normal, our team at LEI plans to further extend our training and services for students in the hybrid mode (online and offline), nurturing more 21st century social entrepreneurs and global citizens.

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YOUR LIMITATION IS YOUR IMAGINATION. ALL YOU NEED IS AN IGNITION. Mentor-Mentee: an at-will reciprocal and collaborative relationship for sustainability

By Balaji Ramanujam, Associate Professor and Research Head, Chemistry and Vijaya Lakshmi Udayagiri, Coordinator of International Relations and Student Counsellor Madanapalle Institute of Technology & Science Faculty Innovation Fellows candidates

RETHINK. REIMAGINE. STRATEGIZE: MENTOR-MENTEE PARTNERSHIP Let us ignite mentees at their launch to transform to the fullest. Provide awareness, give access, groom the capabilities, harness knowledge, hone the skills, refine their attitude and align them to the learning path.

Identify the gaps, connect the dots, ignite the spirit of innovation. Make the difference.

Do we require 4 years?

Educators! Unlock your brain’s super powers. Let us plan with a sustained commitment to transform their lives to embark on a successful journey.

Let us wear a risk lens — an inevitable imperative, while the pandemic has already accelerated transformational change at every institutional level. Is it not the educators’ obligation to accelerate a robust, resilient, and student-centric futuristic education system. Let us instill resilience among the stakeholders by promoting sustainability.

harbingers of internationalization, during their visit to campus in 2016. “We are not stereotypes and we welcome changes,” said Dr. Rama Kumar the then Vice Principal Academics and former Faculty Champion.

Thus the UIF journey began in India, and that was a kick start of MITS.

MITS INNOVATIVE LEARNING PORTRAYAL MITS is in sync with the manifesto of UIF. Since 2016, we have had 38 Fellows. There have been many changes among the leadership circles.

• Sensitivity towards the needs of students and student-driven programs • Regular stakeholders’ meetings • The synergy of innovation and entrepreneurship • The ethos of internationalization • Involvement of students in decision making

THE KICK START OF MITS

• Breakthrough from the conventional thinking to Design Thinking

One small step of the first cohort became a giant leap for a sustainable ecosystem in MITS, thanks to the d.school UIF core team.

• Interactive and collaborative activities amongst peers and faculty

“No doubt we are in a nook. Our vision is to become a globally recognized research institute, our students have potential, our efforts are fabulous, we are ready for the Herculean task” – said visionary of MITS Dr. Vijaya Bhaskar Choudary, the Secretary and Correspondent, extending a hearty welcome to the UIF team, the 22

• Innovative learning circles, clubs, faculty and peer mentoring • Design and implementation of Design Thinking curriculum by the students, of the students, for the students

Gradually, we started experiencing the empowerment of the students. Leaders perceived a win-win situation when Fellows recommended that faculty attend the d.school’s Teaching Learning Studio Program, and five of us are the beneficiaries.

MITS has been vouching all these anxious achievers’ dreams and documenting the same in the brochure and website for further visibility. The achievements have been very empirical.

CANDID SUCCESS STORIES OF MITS The UIF program and especially the UIF Silicon Valley Meetup gave the students the inspiration and the confidence to participate in other programs and an amazing impact can be seen in every Fellow’s personal life. The impact is positively contagious.

“It wasn’t a revolution but an evolution in which slowly and gradually the barriers were reduced among students and faculties. The Establishment of the International Relations Office as MITS Global Outreach is the biggest initiative,” said Prof. C. Yuvaraj, the Principal of the Institute.

MITS is now engaging with MoUs and collaborative activities with international universities in Taiwan, South Korea, Europe, Russia, and Japan.

Fellows participated as UIF event leaders (FABS) in Bangalore, Dubai and the U.S. during the Silicon Valley Meetup and Eastern Hemisphere. 54 students completed internships in Finland, Germany, Dubai, Japan, Russia, Singapore and Taiwan. 170 students engaged in virtual programs, won titles in Hackathons, and bagged “Ideal Student of Talent & Excellence’’ and “Best College State’’ awards.

There are now on-campus instructors for Japanese, French and German languages. Infrastructural expansion and Design Thinking as an academic course with credits embellished the curriculum.

UN Youth Assembly, international conferences and participation in Asia Pacific Innovation Academy, and bagging international start-up awards added value to the MITS ecosystem. “Our journey has started in a small classroom and ended-up with a global community of change makers, Faculty Champions, stakeholders and moving towards a never-ending learning process,” said MITS Fellows Umeshwar, Arjun and Sucharitha, now post-graduate students in NCTU Taiwan.

We have presented a few stories and have heard many more. The transformation at MITS is remarkable, and more details are at bit.ly/mitscasestudy.

transformed the campus into a robust, inclusive learning space. Our sustainability has taken a step forward.

This empathetic approach of a handful of mentors had brought such a positive impact, what would be 355 mentors, which would result in an ECOSYSTEM IMPETUS. Our petite prototype is strengthening the grassroots, which brought positive changes in many students. They came as freshmen with information around and felt overwhelmed looking for guidance. Mindfulness and wellness through mentoring prepared them to face challenges. The bafflement in the four years paved the way to unleash brain power, positive affirmation and personal growth. The eye opening mentorship accelerated their perspective on matters great and small, global and local. Our prototype based on Design Thinking principles — empathy, open mindedness, actionoriented preparedness and radical collaboration — brought sustainability in students’ lives. Structured Mentoring the resonance of our hearts would multiply positive impact, when all mentors join their hands.

These are our baby steps towards sustainability. Our prototype’s focus is students’ wellness: engaging them beyond the course work; proposing a unique integration of peer to peer (UI Fellows) mentoring, faculty-student mentoring, and club activities; enabling them to obtain scattered resources; inculcating research skills; exposing them to international internship programs; and enhancing their entrepreneurial skills. Our epicenter is UIF, the fulcrum on which all the activities are accelerating. Now MITS is at its pace.

OUR PROJECT: SCHEMA FOR STUDENTS’ SUSTAINABILITY (SSS) The prototype of our project is making a unique web portal (sss.mits.ac.in), where the quantum of progress of the beneficiaries is to be documented. Though this is a huge challenge, it brought ripple effects and 23

DESIGNTECH PROGRAMMING ADDS TO STUDENTS’ REPERTOIRE OF SOLUTION TOOLS Empowering diverse teams with human centered design tools to solve wicked, ambiguous problems at Michigan Tech

By Lisa Casper Husky Innovate Program Manager, Michigan Technological University Faculty Innovation Fellows candidate

We live in a time where there are no shortages of problems. Whether we’re talking about the implications of COVID-19, climate change or social inequality, one need not look very far to become overwhelmed by all the work that there is to do. Reframing a bit, this is a time in which there is an abundance of rich opportunities ready for radical redesign.

Design firms such as IDEO, founded by David M. Kelly 30 years ago, led the way with its model for tackling product design challenges. Kelly, founder of the Stanford d.school, took its human centered design process, design thinking, to industry. In combination with design thinking, the IDEO framework utilizes diverse teams to innovate. Psychologists, marketers, anthropologists, engineers and designers are recruited for their unique perspectives. Through leveraging each other’s skills and unique way of framing solutions, they collaborate to solve design challenges across a range of industries. Fast forward to 2021 and you find that the top companies in this space serve Fortune 500 companies and deliver big impact solutions across a variety of industries.

The value of human centered design has been realized by the market. Increasingly more and more companies recognize the power of human centered design such as design thinking which follows a non-linear process of key steps embedded with bundles of activities.

The steps include empathy, define, ideate, prototype, test and then, circle back. As companies adapt to the changing landscapes, the implications will increasingly require tools to facilitate team innovation. Organizations will want to use these methods themselves rather than outsourcing. Students who design with college teams using human centered design will have a unique career advantage. Universities that offer students platforms to design will be sought out by students and hiring 24

organizations. Imagine the contributions that graduates with design thinking experience could make to society!

What if Tech could leverage the skills and perspectives of students across disciplines, increase their creative confidence, and enhance their resumes through an on campus design team group like IDEO? As a Faculty Innovation Fellow, I have been charged with making a contribution to our campus based on an identified need. Through my work as program manager for Husky Innovate, Faculty Champion for University Innovation Fellows, and as an administrator for our Alley Makerspace student managers, I’ve identified such an opportunity for Tech and have begun prototyping it.

The prototype is programming called, “designTech.”

When doing empathy work for this project, I realized: 1) There is student interest in designing and creating innovative solutions. 2) Fellows would benefit from a platform that immediately connects them to other Fellows and a community of stakeholders. 3) Makerspace students or makers want to be able to leverage maker skills to create innovative designs. 4) Lastly, students want social experiences and opportunities to meet and connect with students from other programs. designTech key stakeholders include the University Innovation Fellows (UIF) candidates and graduates, the Alley Makerspace Makers, Husky Innovate co-Directors, interns and students, the Pavlis Honors College, the IDEA hub team, the Applied Cognitive Science and Human Factors department, and the College of Business. Another audience is the larger campus community as a whole, as designTech would be a recruitment and retention piece for Tech. After interviewing key stakeholders, their feedback indicates that this programming would enrich the student experience.

Courtesy of Lisa Casper

Comments include:

“Engineering provides us with problems to solve but not enough design challenges.”

“There aren’t a lot of opportunities to meet students from other departments.”

“As a new UIF, it was difficult to find students to interview.”

“Including makers with a key role in the design team would be great.”

Each spring, designTech would recruit students from all departments at Tech. About 20-25 students would participate each year. During Fall and Spring semesters, a design challenge would be sent out to campus.

This challenge could be technical, social, systems or entrepreneurial. Using a rubric, student teams select the challenge and invite the submitter to participate with the team. Student leadership would include UIF graduates and makerspace coaches. Each semester, the team would tackle one challenge using design thinking and prototyping resources from the makerspace. Key features of the program include: using human centered design methods, diverse student representation from across campus disciplines, inclusive culture, blending making with design thinking and a call for a campus challenge each fall and spring semester. designTech students will select the “winner” challenges using a rubric. The designTech students would become a thinktank type of group available to solve problems across a range, from technical, to social, systems, and entrepreneurial. This programming would be designed so that once each semester, students and the campus community have an opportunity to submit campus challenge.

Courtesy of Lisa Casper

Imagine what it would be like to identify a challenge, participate in the solution and have a team of innovators at your disposal. designTech has the potential to empower students as they add human centered design know-how and experience to their toolbox. It will embolden them to lead large scale and small scale solutions for the rest of their careers.

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communities Our Fellows and faculty value and rely on groups of like-minded peers both within our program and at their schools. Many of them are creating clubs, organizations, and communities of practice in order to gain collaborators and make progress on initiatives.

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BOĞAZIÇI UNIVERSITY Zişan Özdemir BUmpact is a social innovation community that brings together students, alumni and faculty members who are passionate to solve global issues. This community enables them to get to know each other and collaborate in an interdisciplinary way. It’s a medium for those to brainstorm and collaborate. The aim is also to make people aware and make them motivated to take part in solving global issues. This community has been created under BUCREA (Boğaziçi Creative Lab) .

Haluk Ziya Tercan, Zişan Özdemir At Bogazici, there is a huge potential for innovation, change, and creativity. Besides the quality of students, the campus life and the school’s strong history also contribute to this potential. But even if there is potential, it is hard to find and use this potential for the future of society and school. The reason behind this is the lack of a community about that. For this reason, BUCREA (Boğaziçi Creative Lab) has been established with 5 students. This is a community that aims to help students and staff in the school and outside the school to think creatively, learn, design, test, and produce. This community is going to help everybody in the school to try something new and examine the results. This community is going to try to teach the funny side of producing and changing. To reach those goals, different events, opportunities, and education will be given. After the pandemic, it is one of the plans to find a place inside the school and design it to encourage creativity.

ISTANBUL TECHNICAL UNIVERSITY

HAMBURG UNIVERSITY OF TECHNOLOGY David Erler, Hannah Meier, Jannik Jorge Grothusen, Luise Degen

When students at the Hamburg University of Technology (TUHH) have a specific startup idea and a team, our ecosystem offers institutions to which they can turn for support. However, there is currently no infrastructure at the TUHH for students to discuss their ideas, ask for and receive feedback, brainstorm or get in contact with people who are looking for team members on their startup team. Thus, a creative environment for students to connect, exchange and discuss innovative ideas is currently missing. In order to overcome this problem, we are creating an I&E student association named “TUHH Ideenschmiede” (Idea-Forge). The Ideenschmiede is a community, which brings students together, allows them to brainstorm ideas, discuss these and host I&E events to inspire others. At first, we were planning to host it in a physical room, but because of the current pandemic, we are working on a virtual platform that is easily accessible for everyone and can be transformed into a physical space later on. We want to create an enjoyable and innovative user experience by using new tools, like Gathertown, to make meeting digitally more fun.

Cansu Çevik, Selenay Sonay Tufan, Selin Yılmaz, Serhat Bilge As UIF 2020 Istanbul Technical University cohort, we created ITU Learning Community, which is an online learning community at the campus that aims to strengthen the innovative and entrepreneurial skill sets of the Istanbul Technical University students.

The program consists of 2 phases.

In Phase I, we created a community of practice that contains multidisciplinary student teams. Thanks to the 4-week workshop series given by the experts in Turkey on purposeful learning, the art of questions, facilitating collaborations and community of practice, and crew works that reinforce the experience, students developed digital competencies. We continued the “centralized” learning process by “decentralizing” with 4 Acumen Academy courses in Phase II. 28

In this phase, everyone enrolled in the courses they chose and formed their team.

The teams autonomously explored and deepened the courses throughout the process.

In Phase II, we also held biweekly general sharing meetings to see the reflections of the learning experiences. In addition, as the Phase I participants wanted to take the initiative in the process, they took an active role in the smooth flow of experience sharing and participating in event creation.

We also organized monthly readings and movie nights with the film and book clubs established within the community.

LINGNAN UNIVERSITY Samantha Cheuk Wun Lee My campus project is called “Study Together.” I observed that students tend to be hesitant to raise questions and speak up for their thoughts, which leads to a poor learning atmosphere among the campus and allows students to feel passive. I wondered how we might help students get familiar with design thinking skills, how to get students to express their point of view and ideas, and how to enhance the study atmosphere. As a result of this project, I hope that students are able to acquire design thinking skills, and that they become more willing to express themselves and share their ideas.

MADANAPALLE INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY & SCIENCE Poojitha Reddy Konkala, Sasi Supraja Muthakana At the time of our training, we interacted with students and identified problems related to public speaking and communication skills. Due to many socio economic factors, not many students are blessed with good communication skills, as most of them are from rural backgrounds. To overcome this problem, we came up with the idea of establishing the Toastmasters Club at our institute. Toastmasters’ Club is designed to help individuals to become better communicators and also provide them a chance to hone leadership skills. The club provides enough opportunities to strengthen students’ communication skills by involving them in group tasks like impromptu speeches, extempore presentations, debates, prepared speeches and dumb charades to boost the confidence levels. This club enables the

students to shirk off their inhibitions and transform them into good listeners. Thus the peer acceptance in a nonjudgmental way is promoted, resulting in honing of students’ presentation and time management skills.

MENLO COLLEGE Basil Merk, Courtney Cooper, Dez Frazier, Esteban Ramirez Our project is to implement a “Living Learning Community’’ around the theme of entrepreneurship and innovation in order to foster on campus opportunities to be innovative. This idea came from the thought of actively using the spaces students live in, which they now use to relax, with being creative in a community without having any guidelines or measurements, which students often have in the classroom.

SOPHIA UNIVERSITY Tomohiro Loeer

We have launched a new organization called RISE, to empower the youth to become changemakers by building their creative confidence and lighting the path into the realm of unknown possibilities. We design and conduct self-empowerment workshops that introduce the youth (especially girls) to the skills, tools, safe spaces and platforms needed to empower themselves. We have partnered up with Girl Possible, an experienced U.S.-based NPO that teaches leadership skills to young girls. The workshops are part of a sixweek-long road-trip project to be carried out in August-September 2021. Our team will visit various youth communities (specifically camps and organizations for middle school and high school girls) around Japan, providing them with our “Find Your Drive” workshops that aim to awaken students to their own ability to enact social change in their communities. Learn more at rebrand.ly/rise2021.

SOPHIA UNIVERSITY Misshel Keyani Within the various issues that we have identified in our university, I have decided to focus on the lack of an environment for students to share their opinions, ideas, and experiences. I am creating a platform where students can have the opportunity to do so — Blind Truth. This is a place where students come together, both physically and virtually, to explore themselves and build their confidence. In Japan, due to the lack of focus on individuals and more focus on collective priorities, students are less likely to be comfortable saying who they are or what they believe they can accomplish. I hope this platform could support students into self-actualization and self-growth before they enter the business world.

We are starting with the creation and distribution of digital content focused on social issues in Japan — deep discussions about the messages being delivered in movies; combating stereotypes about the LGBTQ+ community; and identifying mental difficulties that individuals face. We are currently delivering our content through YouTube videos and podcasts.

Starting with myself and two close friends, Marina Kato and Sera Yokoyama, we now have grown to 12 members and are expecting more in the near future. We started as a small team within Horizon, a much larger organization. With the expansion of our project, we decided to become an independent organization. As a group, we believe in the potential of individuals and the possibility of a personal story, a life message, and a new perspective. Not only do we aim for this project to spark a change in daily conversations among the youth, but also for the growth and comfort of our members that are a part of this long journey towards a better, inclusive world. Learn more at www.horizon-japan.org/blindtruth.

UNIVERSITY OF NORTH FLORIDA Erisa Gjoka, Jules Gerstein, Maxwell Twardowski, Rory Hampson, Tala Sartawi One project we are working on is creating an online makerspace. Our university does not have a physical space on campus for a makerspace, so we decided to take it online.

We envision this as an interactive place for students and professors from different departments to collaborate, and share their most recent projects and discoveries.

We learned that Canvas is the most used university site by students, so we decided to make our makerspace a Canvas course that students have easy access to. We would like to include a platform, such as Mural or Bluescape, to make it more interactive.

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HELPING STUDENTS STAND ON THEIR OWN FEET Four projects to serve and inspire students at Aditya College of Engineering & Technology

By La Selene Dommu Aditya College of Engineering and Technology University Innovation Fellow

“We want that education by which character is formed, strength of mind is increased, the intellect is expanded, and by which one can stand on one’s own feet.” ~Swami Vivekananda Education, in its real sense, is the pursuit of truth. It is an endless journey through knowledge and enlightenment. It empowers and prepares us to face the challenges of life more efficiently. Different students have different capabilities and perspectives in problem solving. To bring such qualities of students into the limelight, the UI Fellows of Aditya College of Engineering and Technology came together to create a few initiatives in our school ecosystem.

For the students interested in innovation and who want to use ethical business practices to make an impact in society, we kicked off an incubator called “Entrevation” — the amalgamation of “entrepreneurship” and innovation.” The mission is to instill the passion and spirit among students and help them stand on their feet. Entrepreneurship has the ability to improve standards of living and create wealth, not only for the entrepreneurs, but also for related businesses.

Entrevation will help students learn about pilot projects which prove the viability of a project idea. Such an incubator can assist with the resources, equipment needed for the budding entrepreneurs to bring the idea to implementation.

Entrepreneurs also help drive change with innovation, where new and improved products enable new markets to be developed. Fortunately, we also have the aid from the entrepreneurs, who are now the alumni of our school. Entrevation helped as a platform to let students know about their journey, learn from their experiences and get guidance in this pathway. Such vibrant interactive sessions makes students get acquainted with the culture of entrepreneurship.

For the students who want to make a career in arts apart from being a student of engineering, we created a club called “Navadhara.” The aim is to encourage students’ interest and participation in the arts through performance and literature.

Navadhara encourages students with an interest in performative fields either as on-stage or off-stage contributors. The club is a venue for exploration and the exchange of ideas amongst students who share a common interest. Students who enjoy all aspects of the performing arts are encouraged to learn the skills and rehearse for each spectacular show. It also aims to 30

broaden the intellectual horizons, by promoting thoughtful reading, writing, discussion and brainstorming sessions. Such a platform can help students to learn valuable skills such as creating content and public relations, and it allows them to express themselves while enlightening their peers.

Our team also introduced College Radio, an instructional medium that can redefine the learning experience, have integrative effects, trigger active participation, enhance educational activities and maximize community engagement.

We came up with JAM talks, Talent of the Week, Advice of the Day, events coverage like Seminars, Workshops, Placements, Sports, News updates. College Radio is limited to our campus with a target community of undergraduate students, teachers, and administrative staff. It empowers students to add their voices and opinions to the airwaves; connects listeners to new ideas and artists; fosters creativity; and serves as a platform to learn and appreciate the process of creation and be the voice of the student community.

To help students with their personal, educational and career goals, we came up with an app called “AlFaSt” that connects Alumni, Faculty and Students. Proper counseling will help students incorporate valuable lessons in their daily life and prepare them for their careers after school in whatever fields they opt for. The interaction with the alumni lets the students know what to do and what not to do at each stage of college life. The AlFaSt app allows students to post their queries regarding career vision, check out latest posts on trends in technology, news feed of industry, job and internship opportunities. Answering the queries can go into a chain of discussion in thread. All such features could be brought under a roof to provide a pathway to students, in the form of the best and handy way of an Application, where it can be deployed and maintained. The impact of such an application depends on to what extent the students can utilize an opportunity, and time to connect and interact with the world out of college.

The more is the exposure to applicative knowledge, the more they are exposed to learn and achieve.

The impact on students’ lives makes it worth all the efforts that we put as a team in bringing about a change. To see students get a helping hand in achieving their dreams and being a part of their accomplishments that they conquer is the greatest thing that one can get being a Fellow, because #WeBelieveStudentsCanChangeTheWorld.

A MANIFESTO FOR “LEARNING TO BECOME….”

Real outcomes of authentic learning

By Mirna Mattjik Teaching Associate Professor, Engineering, Design, and Society, Colorado School of Mines Faculty Innovation Fellows candidate Today I was pleasantly surprised. A colleague from the administrative side of the pond perked up after listening to my lightning talk on reflection. Could it be a start of something new and exciting on campus? A mash up between learning in and outside the classroom or a two way tunnel of teaching and learning, connecting the two? Maybe the key is, we are all learners. Being reflective in and about our practices, no matter the role, makes us a better learner.

Design engineering has always been my safe space, I feel like home in this environment. I am privileged, because this feeling of excitement and joy for learning is undoubtedly something embedded in design. At least that is what I know and feel, a genuine closeness to learning due to the process of framing, reframing, pivoting, iterating, and testing in design. After several encounters and experience with the Teaching and Learning Studio community of practice, I am convinced the thinking of, in and about design can be ported into other realms of engineering education. It will definitely elevate teaching and learning to a learner-centered orientation. A dream of any Bloom’s Taxonomy high-achiever. And what if we push it even further — so we aim for “learning to become…”, exceedingly more than “learning about” or “learning by” (see Figure 1)1.

Why does authentic learning matter? Ultimately connecting real life experiences and learning in any engineering field supports “learning to become”. This is achieved by ways in which authentic learning engages the learner with high order of thinking: further than understanding the concepts, knowing how to apply it, and moreover, problem-solving on demand. The latter is one that can only be done effectively and accurately when provided contextual details. Reflection plays an integral part, too.

Figure 1. Expanded Bloom’s Taxonomy, credit vTLS 2021

be a good place to start. Also, a reminder that we are all learners. Like my colleague from the other side of the pond, who is gung-ho about using reflection in her work environment. What a cool revelation: we are all learners, this mindset sets us up for success.

“Learning to become…” is the ultimate goal of a successful learner, no matter the discipline. The purpose of authentic learning is to gain insights from or with practitioners in the field. Thus, the learning happens inside and outside the classroom walls. UIFs are prime examples of students who crave this type of learning.

Our E&I ecosystem welcomes this idea, as it also aligns perfectly with Mines@150 — an institutional wide effort to provide signature learning experiences. This is an invitation to ignite the passion, power and innovation in teaching and learning even further — leaning into pedagogical levers “plus” practice and reflection on “learning to become....”

Yes, all of that is important. Now what? Where do we start to achieve the goal of “learning to become…”?

Onboarding like-minded people on campus who believe in the same goal is key. An open invitation to start the conversation, which directly supports Mines@1502 will

1 2

d.school virtual Teaching & Learning Studio Workshop. February - March 2021. Unpublished Work.

Colorado School of Mines, Mines@150 Mission, Vision, and Strategies. Accessed on March 15, 2021. [Online]. Available: https://www.mines.edu/president/planning/

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SELF-DESIGN YOUR STUDENT JOURNEY EXPERIENCE “When you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change” - Max Planck

By Magdalena Ionescu Faculty of Liberal Arts, Faculty of Law, Sophia University Faculty Innovation Fellows candidate

Do you remember your first year of college? The anticipation, with its exhilarating mix of excitement and anxiety about the unknown? As a mother of a fivemonth-old baby at the time, I thought that my freshman year was uniquely challenging and difficult. Years of teaching experience later, I realize that in so many ways my difficulties were not really unique. Regardless of their particular circumstances, most students struggle with the transition to university life.1 Still, can you imagine how it feels to be a freshman today, in the age of dizzying change, amidst a global pandemic? While figuring things out on your own is part of the maturing process, I believe that now more than ever, the uncertainty and apprehension experienced by freshman and sophomore students require particular consideration. “Students are like missiles”, as one colleague brilliantly put it. With the appropriate “scaffolding”, they lock on and propel themselves forward to unfailingly strike their targets. Without such a focus, however, they either fail to fire at all, or fire up without any clear sense of direction.2 For the past three years, within the student organization Horizon3, I have witnessed first-hand the positive impact that such “scaffolding” (through one-on-one coaching and mentorship, as well as team-building and teamwork) has in helping students focus their attention and energies on formulating self-defined goals they find meaningful and worth pursuing4. In early 2019, 1 2 3 4 5

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a group of like-minded students joined hands to create this safe space where they could identify and explore their passions, as well as learn new skills and build a community of trust and mutual support.

In my mind, Horizon represents a “proof of concept” which I am currently working to expand within Sophia and beyond. There are three aspects to my work in this sense.

First, the Changemaker Learning Journey (CLJ) project within Horizon. For the past eight months, we have been reflecting on our own journey and working to develop a “template” to use as “scaffolding” for new Horizon members as well as non-members who are embarking on a similar journey of self-discovery and growth into changemakers for social impact. This template addresses issues like purpose-finding, vision-formulation, goal-setting, prioritization, standards for success and professionalism, support system as well as team building and teamwork.

Second, I have been working with another group of students trained in design thinking at Stanford and the HPI School of Design Thinking in Germany, to expand their knowledge and experience to a wider audience within the Sophia community and beyond. They are one of the groups to “take off’ from the Horizon platform, growing their changemaker seed into an independent organization called RISE5 that seeks to

Oliver Kress explains this difficulty in terms of the human cognitive system’s need for adaptation to environments it has never before experienced and for which, therefore, it has no assimilation and accommodation technique available. Kress, Oliver (1993) “A new approach to cognitive development: ontogenesis and the process of initiation”, Evolution and Cognition 2: 319-332.

Hill, Patrick et al. (2011) “Change You Can Believe In: Changes in Goal Setting During Emerging and Young Adulthood Predict Later Adult Well-Being”, Soc Psychos Personal Sci 2(2): 123-131.

Horizon homepage: www.horizon-japan.org To date, the Horizon “incubator” has enabled various projects to “hatch”: Fempowerment, CocoEco, Refugee Support Group, RISE, Blind Truth, Itoshima Ocean Pollution Project.

RISE homepage: https://rebrand.ly/rise2021

Credit Aleksandar Mihol / FearlessMotivation.com

“empower youth to become changemakers by building their creative confidence and lighting the path into the realm of unknown possibilities”.

Third, I am working to embed the UIF program within Sophia University. 2020 was our first time to participate with a team of four students. For the 2021 cohort, we have put together 2 teams of 8 students in total, and we have gathered provisional administration and financial support. I am working with Fellows, faculty and administration to increase our initiatives’ visibility and garner the necessary long-term support for the program. I am convinced that this will act as a magnet for like-minded students, faculty and staff to come together and work on existing and new initiatives.

My long-term vision is to scale up the Horizon experience by creating an ecosystem that enables students to acquire the design-thinking mindset and skills to identify, develop and test solutions to real-life problems. The aim is to help students build the confidence they need to take a leap of faith and act upon their passion and ideas for social impact.

collaborating with others to create a sustainable and desirable future for all8.

In sync with its long-established tradition of contributing to the internationalization of Japanese education, Sophia University has become the first9 Japanese university whose students have joined Stanford University d.school’s expanding global network of design-thinking Fellows who are being the change they wish to see in their own communities. It is my strong belief that support for more of Sophia’s students to access the spaces and skills that help them to define their own goals and self-design their student journey experience will not only allow them to self-empower, but will also enable them to inspire their peers and bring deeply meaningful contributions to their communities, in their Alma Mater’s spirit of “Men and Women for Others, with Others.”

We are living in fast-changing and uncertain times that require flexibility not only in terms of skills and approach, but, more importantly, in the mindset with which we approach our challenges6. As Albert Einstein famously put it, we cannot solve a problem with the same mindset that created it. Providing the space for students to learn experientially7 while in college is imperative not only for developing their ethical responsibility, individual confidence and resilience, but also their mental habit of thinking “outside the box” and 6 7 8 9

Irwin, Terry (2015) “Design and Academe - Transition Design: A proposal for New Area of Design Practice, Study and Research”, Design and Culture 7(2): 229-246.

Varela, Francisco (1999) Ethical Know-How: Action, Wisdom, and Cognition, Stanford: Writing Science.

Manzini, Ezio (2015) Design, When Everybody Designs: An Introduction to Design for Social Innovation, Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Sophia University homepage news: https://www.sophia.ac.jp/eng/news/news210519.html

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connections Connecting with other students, faculty and administrators has always been a priority for Fellows. But this year, COVID-19 forced many of us to learn from behind a computer screen, which made interactions even more difficult. A number of Fellows designed new platforms and systems for person-to-person engagement to address these issues, while others tackled challenges that existed even before the pandemic.

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FH SALZBURG Heiko Lehrer, Lionel Aßhauer

ELON UNIVERSITY Christina Wyatt, Dwight Stucker, Jakob Reuter, Jane Ragland, Margaret Cox, Riley Corvin, Zoe Rein

To address a need for coordinated activities and communications across campus, our cohort has developed a new innovative organization on campus called “Link Coordinators.” This new initiative was designed by our cohort as a means to form connections between the many different clubs on campus in order to encourage collaboration and communication across our student body.

The idea originated from our cohort recognizing that because students on our campus are passionate about so many things, they tend to become over-involved, overly committed and as a result, stretched too thin and often stressed. We transformed this “problem” into the question of how might we promote an efficient use of time and resources to allow students to still pursue a variety of passions within multiple organizations without having to compromise their overall well-being.

Our solution became “Link Coordinators.” This group will serve as a reference point for organizational leaders to turn to seek out other clubs to partner with. For example, a business fraternity might plan on hosting a case competition. Through our initiative, we could partner them with a marketing club to help market their project and recruit participants. By increasing partnerships and collaborations, we hope to focus on deeper and more meaningful student involvement (i.e., depth over breadth), and create a more well-connected campus.

Our UIF cohort will be the founding members of this organization, but, as an integral part of this project, we are building a guidebook so that other students can join the organization and carry it forward to sustain the project once our cohort graduates.

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Our University currently uses a multitude of different platforms, which can sometimes make it difficult to get the information you need. After finishing our training, we decided to prioritize our communication platform concept. Our main goal is to condense as much information as possible on one platform, in our case Microsoft Teams, offering the students a simple one-stop shop to get all the information they need. Additionally we want to establish new communication channels for students to connect across different fields of study. This will be a gradual process beginning with smaller channels and the most important information. In addition to this platform we are trying to improve the possibilities for students to be included in faculty groups that work on concepts for the future of e-learning and blended learning at our FH. As good communication is integral for these systems to work.

Andreas Golser, Heiko Lehrer, Julia Armstorfer Having noticed that the motivation and especially the inspiration are constantly decreasing within our university, we have decided to start an approach to rekindle the spirit of the students and the teachers. By doing so, we want to promote the benefits of working together in diverse groups as well as empower the teacher-student connection. Our way of doing it is via a so-called “Schnitzeljagd,” where the participants have the opportunity to solve funny and knowledge-expanding quiz questions within their teams. The questions are especially designed to be perfectly solvable for interdisciplinary teams and therefore our hope is that contestants will benefit sustainably from the new contacts.

MADANAPALLE INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY & SCIENCE Vasu Deva Rao BNV As a part of UIF training, we interviewed many students who expressed that when they lag behind, they receive professional guidance from the seniors. I experienced the same; whenever I was stuck in the completion of assignments, my seniors worked with me and helped me to overcome obstacles. I got connected to this pain point of my peers and took it as a strategy to provide career guidance to them. We thought alumni connect would be the best solution and fixed our priority to “Alumni Consortium.”

We are working to make a platform similar to LinkedIn or Facebook where the current students can access the profiles of previous batches and get guidance. This collaboration enhances the Alma connection and respon-

sibility to give back to the ecosystem from which they emerged. The students in the campus can directly interact, seek help and collaborate with them.

UNIVERSIDAD TECNOLÓGICA DEL URUGUAY Ainara Saralegui, Juan Silva Our original goal was to work on a platform to improve communication among students and with the institution. We realized that due to the summer recess and the change of authorities, it would be better to generate a direct channel with the students that does not necessarily go through the institutional environment. We’ve decided to create new ways to contact students ourselves by using different social media platforms, and we are now working on that.

UNIVERSITY OF RICHMOND Anthony Moody, Chloe Khoshand, Khushi Basnyat, Penny Hu, Sarah Schalkoff, Sophia Hartman We are currently in the development process of a project titled FriendUR, an online platform that helps students connect with each other. The idea behind FriendUR is quite simple: students interested in meeting other students fill out a personal profile indicating their interest, the type of connection they are looking for, and the setting in which they would like to meet fellow student(s). Then, our team matches participants based on the profile information and initiates the first meet-up by providing both of the participants with the preferred contact methods of their counterpart(s). The initial connection formed through FriendUR may come in the form of friendship, study groups/gym partners, or a mentor-mentee relationship between students of different grades. Our project aims to address two issues that we found on our campus through the UIF training process: first, the lack of information transparency among social/academic groups and students of various backgrounds when it comes to information about campus resources and opportunities. Second, the uncertainty and isolation that many students are struggling to deal with during this global pandemic.

UNIVERSITY OF ST. THOMAS Ben Frey, Jamie Tjornehoj, Pambayun Savira, Shawn Catudal Our idea is to have a pop-up shop on campus that would promote student connection and networking. This was created in hopes of

Credit Hannah Broadway

MENLO COLLEGE Basil Merk, Courtney Cooper, Dez Frazier, Esteban Ramirez

Our project, “The Grid,” is an online platform that has the purpose to connect students who want to start or just started a business with each other and especially with alumni who are experts in the field. The students then have an opportunity to network with each other as well as tapping into networks of alumni, who also stay engaged in college life.

adding a spot on campus that would draw students in and be a safe place to create, design, learn, and speak about important issues that our community faces today. The idea revolves around themes that the pop up would have, such as Black History Month, student innovation month, and more. There would be professional speakers, small business involvement, and alumni association within the pop-up prototype objective.

The idea is multi-purpose and allows for recognition of a variety of subjects. When implemented on campus this Fall, it will be placed in an area with extensive foot traffic so that students are able to easily stop by and participate. As it has evolved, the prototype is becoming more sustainable beyond our cohort’s time at St. Thomas. We are considering having the pop-up be clubor student-led. We are also nailing down a good space for the pop-up that would attract a large number of students and allow them to feel comfortable. We thought of this idea with the knowledge that freshmen at our campus were really feeling isolated, especially with the challenges from COVID-19.

Many vocalized, in interviews we conducted, that they wish there was a place they could just go and meet people. The pop-up idea counters the dispersed-ness our campus faces today. With activities that promote interaction, the pop-up will be a way for students to foster connections with each other and will ultimately be a place for friendships to be made.

UNIVERSITY OF TWENTE Aaron van Santen, Moritz Wagner, Philippe Damoiseaux The student networking project called CommUniTy aims at connecting students, project owners, and mentors. We strive to provide them with a hub that allows them to find team members for project ideas, show engagement in a project idea, and seek or provide mentoring to projects and teams. The UT already has great opportunities to accelerate your own business idea but we want to support young founders with the resources and network to plan it out and work on it in the future. This platform we intend to build should connect alumni, accelerators, and a diverse range of students to find each other based on common interests and their area of expertise. The platform should offer easy usage, simple and effective filtering to make collaborating as easy as possible. Unlike existing platforms, this focuses on projects and teams and gives users the opportunity to casually connect, getting to know each other, receiving input, and collaborating.

As a prototype of this approach, we organized an online networking event called SpUIF Dating to connect with other UIF cohorts, which was a great success.

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events Bringing people together has always been a core activity of our Fellows and faculty. This year, we saw many creative ways to continue learning while social distancing. Our community members continued to create opportunities for group engagement, including virtual workshops, speaker series, and more.

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CLEMSON UNIVERSITY River Sneed, Kate Tolleson, Sabrina Manji, Terryn Witherspoon Our team is working with the previous Fellows on a continuation of their project called SPARK. The CECAS SPARK Challenge is a two-semester program and pitch competition that seeks to support students and their ideas in the areas of technology, innovation and entrepreneurship. This year, we converted SPARK into an online format due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

We created a high school component to the pitch challenge called SPARK Jr. We have about 15 students in the program.

SPARK Jr. participants take an idea they are passionate about and go through our program to help them improve, prototype, and ultimately pitch the concept at our pitch competition. Participants meet with our Fellows biweekly, and we introduce resources about everything from design thinking to prototyping to pitching.

COLORADO SCHOOL OF MINES Henry Jenkins, Katherine King We are creating a TEDx-style club. We plan to have public speakers and student speakers. The public speakers could either be professors from around the campus who want their voice to reach a larger audience or other people from the public sphere who have some expertise in the current topic.

For student speakers, we were thinking about developing a training program through our school’s writing center to help prepare the student to give a clear and engaging presentation to the audience.

The two main functions that we are hoping to perform with this project are to start important conversations that aren’t already happening on campus (e.g. social impact of technology, politics, current events), and allow students the chance to share various life experiences with others. The former goal serves to orient the student body towards broader topics to make sure they receive due consideration, but also to break Mines students outside the so-often secluded bubble that a STEM education affords.

The latter goal would allow Mines students the opportunity to improve their public speaking and presentation skills as well as the potential to promote solidarity among more of the student body. Nowadays, everything is in a more digital space, and people are feeling more isolated than ever.

Overall, the focus of our cohort was the betterment of mental health. Each project took this differently. The idea to film videos for freshmen (see page 50) helps relieve anxiety about not knowing what major one wants to be in or if the career path is right for 40

them. The mental health class (see page 14) is about teaching students about their own body and how to use it to serve themselves.

The creative spaces (see page 66) are meant to promote healthy coping mechanisms that involve technology, art, and connection to other students. The speaker series should foster an environment in which Mines students can not only connect with each other through shared experiences and learning but also take part in the process of learning to express oneself clearly. Every project is in progress. The class is getting off to a good start. The syllabus and TA presence enhance the class experience, even during the pandemic. The speaker series is in the prototyping phase. The creative space and video are on their way to garnering support on campus.

to Fordham University. We are working with different alumni groups at Fordham to connect and network with alumni to interview over Zoom. Initially, the Fellows team will host the episodes, but as we build interest around our event, we hope to bring other undergraduate students onto the Zoom to ask questions themselves. Once Fordham returns to on-campus instruction, we will host our discussions in-person. We are convinced that “Weekly Wednesdays” will have a positive impact on our campus community, as we recognize that, for all their benefits, classes alone may fall short of equipping students for life in the real world. Connecting with people that have dealt with these challenges is a great way to fill in this gap.

FORDHAM UNIVERSITY

ILLINOIS INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY

Arham Sheikh, Benjamin Lukens, Bhavesh Patel, Teodor Parolo Tasevski

Andrew Guardia, Jack Pio, Katja Berthold, Pranav Nair

The project that my team has created is called “Weekly Wednesdays.” We plan on holding a panel with different alumni every other week on Wednesdays while working with different clubs to bring engagement

Our team’s project is Chicago Startup Week, a 5-day virtual conference that celebrates the Chicago student startup community.

This year’s edition will mobilize Chicago’s

Credit Hannah Broadway

GRAND VALLEY STATE UNIVERSITY Brady Mills, Ethan Paras, Hannah Cline

Our project is called “Weekends in GR.” We wanted these weekend events to be fun getaways for freshmen during the fall semester.

They would provide a way for students to get plugged into their community alongside new friends from campus. We planned to have restaurant visits, park explorations, and local business introductions. All of this would incorporate campus and community resources to create a program that combats the freshmen loneliness and isolation that is so common at GVSU.

entrepreneurial community to connect students from various universities and high schools in an empowering and engaging environment, ideal for networking and learning. Students can participate in CSW to develop their entrepreneurial mindset and make significant connections to student peers, mentors, and tech industry professionals that will move them forward in their entrepreneurship journey. CSW organizing committee includes Techstars Chicago and Illinois Tech’s Intinium, in partnership with UIUC Founders, UChicago ILC-E&I, The Garage at Northwestern, Loyola Limited, Lane Tech Protostars from Chicago Public Schools, and the City Colleges of Chicago.

Additional partners include ChicagoNEXT of World Business Chicago, Gokyo Solutions, and The Coleman Foundation.

ISTANBUL TECHNICAL UNIVERSITY Selenay Sonay Tufan

JAMES MADISON UNIVERSITY

My project is to create a solution to the issue of sociability, which is felt as a big problem in our university. In our country, because of COVID-19, university education is given online at the moment, and in this context, students have a lot of trouble with social issues. The newcomers to our university have not been able to see our campus or make friends. It is my project to organize socialization activities for all students, but especially for students who are newly registered at our university. In this context, BEEDAYS-01 was held on February 27, 2021. Each participating ITU student had the opportunity to meet an average of 10 different students. In the survey conducted to measure the impact, it was learned that every student participating in the event would want to participate in BEEDAYS-02.

Preparations for BEEDAYS-02, which will be held in the summer months, have begun!

Cameryn Norris, Emily Marsch, Robin Lagodka

Serhat Bilge I am designing a workshop series to start innovation discourse of ITU with students, academics, alumni, and school administration. This will create a common target and perspective to execute projects in the same climate. Moreover, we believe that people will start to work together thanks to common interests.

JAMES MADISON UNIVERSITY Abigail Maltese, Mark Vakarchuk, Lauren Dargan, Pierre Mbala We are working on a design competition for our sophomore students to create solutions to real world problems alongside alumni mentors.

Throughout our UIF training, we were passionate about virtual learning. Originally, we planned to establish a consulting program, podcast, and best practices guide to assist professors with virtual learning. After an insightful conversation with faculty members, we then pivoted and planned to work directly with the JMU X-Labs academic class, Arts Innovations, assisting in their technologybased performances and coursework.

After training the performing arts students on our Solstice Client and whiteboard technologies, we pivoted once again to host an innovative event at JMU X-Labs. Each year, JMU X-Labs hosts Fab Lab, an event designed to encourage female engagement with science and technology. This year, the JMU X-Labs UIF team worked with the rest of the JMU X-Labs team to incorporate UIF ideas into our usual Fab Lab event. We offered various workshops including design thinking, CAD software learning, augmented reality, and more to more than 60 participants.

KOÇ UNIVERSITY

LINGNAN UNIVERSITY

Ahmet Berk Tuzcu, Pinar Donmez

Bliss Xiao Qian Tan

During the COVID-19 pandemic many of the students stated that they felt disconnected from the world. To create an international environment that allows students to think about the problems of the World and come up with solutions while practicing design thinking methodologies, we are creating International Design Thinking Workshops together with Ajman University and Saint Joseph University of Beirut.

As one of the executive committee members of Enactus Lingnan University, I have been promoting design thinking, entrepreneurship, and social innovation at our university throughout the semester. Our organization held a virtual orientation on October 11, 2020 to gather students who are passionate about social innovation to discuss ideas. We had successfully recruited three project teams to participate in the Enactus Hong Kong regional competition.

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Thuy Duong Pham I am collaborating with a Fellow from Japan to run an online Design Thinking workshop with students there.

NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF DEVELOPMENT ADMINISTRATION Bunlang Gerdthungyang, Natchaya Sakulpong, Puch Jaroonwit, Sunisa Intharachan We are focusing on a group of internal staff members that we want to bridge the gap among them in the workplace. First, we created several design thinking workshops, called “Routine to Research” to facilitate changes around campus. The workshops were designed to serve different activities including creating a NIDA alert system for the school activities and events, improving MOU procedures for international collabo-

ration, and integrating existing enterprise databases to support the university’s digital transformation strategy. Second, we conducted a special workshop for library staff members so that they learned how to apply design thinking mindsets and toolsets to inspire creative thinking habits, to improve library’s service, and to modify the spaces to suit the changes in users’ behavior.

Third, our Faculty Champions and UIF team also participated in the external workshop for the department of mental health.

The focus was on new normal, e-service, innovation, and COVID-19.

OHIO UNIVERSITY Ishan Matta, Laura Ndoigo, Melissa Damico We hope to create a design thinking and innovation workshop for freshmen.

The workshop would take place during freshmen orientation so it could reach all students at once. No other solution we

came up with would have an impact of that scale, and the knowledge students would gain could enhance their education in ways that could not be easily done otherwise.

SOPHIA UNIVERSITY nhiro Loeer In our research, we found that many students at Sophia University had tremendous drive and motivation. However, many students displayed a lack of belief in being “entrepreneurial” or “innovative.” Instead of helping students realize their projects, we needed to inspire students. Therefore, I have conducted three workshops with over 30 students each since the UIF training.

With the experience I have acquired, I am currently planning a series of ideathons for Japanese University students starting at Sophia University. In each workshop, we will tackle a challenge in the framework of one SDG, specifically bringing in 2-3 experts on the topic for the students to gain immediate empathy for the challenge. The ideathons are designed for the virtual world, and about 15-20 students can participate every time. If possible, we are also hoping to organize several in-person workshops.

UNIVERSIDAD DE INGENIERÍA Y TECNOLOGÍA Marcela Yeckle, Mirella Rivas, Thalí­a Leyton

SRI VENKATESWARA COLLEGE OF ENGINEERING Abdul Wadood Shaik, Haritha A S, Renu Guntur, Sowjanya Murari

Our “Weekend Fun” strategy is an attempt made to bring out the hidden talents of our students. This mainly focuses on establishing a healthy relationship among students. It includes thought provoking ideas such as solving puzzles, riddles, quiz, etc. This paved a path to motivate individuals according to their interests. Due to the pandemic, as the physical mode of the college is not available, we have organized the session virtually using Google Meet. We had great fun as well as new insights from the young minds and we were glad to provide such a useful platform to the young minds.

Even after the college reopens, we will try to conduct these types of sessions and engage with the juniors to bridge the gap between senior and junior.

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We have created Saphi, a series of virtual workshops offered to UTEC students during winter and summer vacations so that they learn how to create and start a project idea from scratch, in an experiential, dynamic and creative way. We aim for students to feel that undertaking is related to our majors, and they are capable of doing it.

Our first workshop was on March 27, 2021, and it was aimed to teach fellow students to identify real needs within the COVID pandemic, understanding users and learning to hear them, so that later on they could propose solutions. The complete program will be launched in August 2021.

UNIVERSIDAD DEL DESARROLLO Constanza Standen Chile is growing and changing at an amazing speed, and many might feel left behind. My project comes to unify people who would like to work for the community and all those problems that our changes might be causing using Design Thinking as our way to find new solutions. “i Thinking”

is the name of this project that comes up with different challenges every month for us to try to sort out with an always changing group of students. As the topic that summons us every month is different we try to get to different students with different interests so everyone can feel involved and learn how to innovate in an area that they like and feel comfortable with.

Constanza Standen, Emilio Vera, Jose Ruiz, Julián Castilo Our team is working on LOOP Chile, a unique Latin American experience that creates bonds between people, organizations, and communities linked to the innovation and entrepreneurship ecosystem. Through different talks, activities, and workshops, we will go over the topics of sustainability, inclusion, and well-being within the global ecosystem.

UNIVERSITY OF NORTH FLORIDA Erisa Gjoka, Jules Gerstein, Maxwell Twardowski, Rory Hampson, Tala Sartawi Mental health is very important to our cohort and we learned through training that Student Government (SG) hosts a mental health week every year. For this project, we decided to partner with SG and help with this event. This was a live event hosted on zoom and streamed on Facebook Live. Our cohort participated in two events: “A Conversation between Students and Faculty” and the closing ceremony, in which we gave a presentation on tips and tricks to stay motivated and mentally well during the semester.

UNIVERSITY OF TWENTE Marlen Braun, Moritz Wagner, Philippe Damoiseaux, Rianne Dalhuisen, Thomas Goudsblom Every year, UIF Twente organizes a European meetup/summer course for Fellows and students all over the world and functions as a sort of European hub. This year our cohort is taking a different approach. In our case, due to the Covid-19 pandemic, we had to change our whole meetup to online. However, we did not want to do a boring Zoom conference.

We are planning on working together with VR platforms on which students can sign in on either their desktop or VR headset. This makes it more interactive and fun. Many stakeholders will tune in through a headset and some controllers to still give each other an in person vibe. The topic of this year’s meetup is Change. We are going to dive into the skills necessary to create change, the skills to recognize failed change and many more. Many case studies will be evaluated and at the end pitches will be made.

UNIVERSITY OF TWENTE Philippe Damoiseaux, Rianne Dalhuisen, Thomas Goudsblom

Because so many meetups between UIF fellows were being canceled we missed the interaction of our community. We decided to start a project called SpUIF Dating to have a sort of speed dating between fellows for one another to get to know each other. The first 2 sessions were very successful and ended up reaching a crowd of 70 fellows. During these events we would put two people into a zoom breakout room and propose guiding questions for them to talk about. Because of this event, a lot of new connections were made between different universities. However, after having two sessions we wanted to shift it and work with other universities to promote it.

Due to this some problems arose like planning in 3 different time zones (India, Netherlands, U.S. and Peru) and dividing tasks. At the moment this project is on a hold but hopefully it will be picked up again sometime soon.

VIRGINIA TECH Blake Warner, Gracee Hutchinson, Pierina Galvez Diaz, Sai Gurrapu During our research, our cohort found that Virginia Tech has a plethora of different innovative and entrepreneurial opportunities and resources, but that there is little widespread awareness of them. We decided

that it would be beneficial to increase awareness of these resources. We wanted to start with local high school students to expand Virginia Tech’s innovation and entrepreneurship pipeline. We aimed to do this by hosting virtual workshops and talking with local high school students, but then eventually expanding to students in colleges at Virginia Tech that do not have opportunities in the I&E space.

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INFLUENCING STUDENTS TO BECOME ADVOCATES ON CAMPUS Why we held a paid changemaking workshop to empower student leaders

By Ryan Chapman, Joey Gruber, Marissa Morales and Lavanya Uppala University of Nebraska at Omaha University Innovation Fellows

While students learn the skills to implement lasting change in their communities through their college education, they are often not provided the context, time, or incentive to do so. However, numerous examples, identified both through our own research and through UIF training, have shown that when students are presented with these opportunities without barriers, immense positive change is often enacted.

To facilitate these avenues of innovation and entrepreneurship, we hosted a paid changemaking workshop. The results of the workshop showed that when provided the tools and motivation to do so, student civic engagement and empathetic problem solving of community issues increases.

More specifically, during the course of our UIF training, we found that many problems facing students at our home institution, the University of Nebraska at Omaha (UNO), were rooted in the COVID-19 pandemic and its impacts on education. We conducted several student interviews regarding these issues. Through the surveys, students reported feeling isolated from other students and felt unheard by both professors and university administration. Additionally, students did not feel as though they had sufficient financial support to participate in changemaking efforts while supporting their university tuition, and therefore felt that they were blocked from participating in these innovation efforts.

Based on these feelings, and as both a resource for interested students and an experiment to show UNO administration, we developed a 3-day changemaking workshop that aimed to teach students the proponents of leading change, apply design methodologies for developing solutions to change, and compensate students for learning, leading, and improving our university.

We wanted to create a workshop that would inspire 44

and empower students to create change for issues they see on UNO’s campus and connect them with faculty to initiate collaboration. We also wanted to pay the students, so that students with financial adversities had the opportunity to participate We began our planning of the workshop by working with Vice Chancellor Dan Shipp and Assistant Vice Chancellor Kristina Cammarano, and Director of Student Development Harnoor Singh. It took our group about 3 months to locate funding to pay students $9 an hour, create an agenda, design the curriculum, invite students, and execute the overall event.

Participation in our workshop was open to all enrolled UNO undergraduate and graduate students.

Our workshop was advertised via social media and via email communication through various university organizations.

Our workshop was held via Zoom over the course of three days. Each day consisted of a two-hour long session split into two hour-long halves. The first hour of the session was an informational section to teach participants the proponents of that day’s activities.

Each day also included student speakers who had been involved in student-led change at UNO. The second half of each session was devoted to working in groups to focus on each day’s task.

When developing the workshop, we defined our metrics of success as the number of projects that students developed solutions for, the number of students who joined our new organization, Mavs for Change, after the workshop, and the number of faculty who attended the workshop.

We believe that our workshop was successful based on our defined metrics. Our workshop included five

Mural showing the ideation session run by a group focused on accessibility of technology and online coursework at UNO, courtesy of authors

student speakers, six faculty, staff, and administrators, and 27 general participants. We had originally only budgeted for 20 students, but based on the level of interest, we expanded. During the workshop students identified three areas that needed reform: Campus Safety/Security, Accessibility, and Mental Health.

Students in our workshop developed five solutions to problems that they have seen at UNO. These included issues in the areas of Accessibility, Mental Health, and Campus Security.

By the conclusion of the workshop, all five groups had proposals for carrying out their work in the future.

Since our workshop, students have taken several steps to implement change at UNO. One of the groups focused on accessibility of the UNO website has presented to the Chancellor’s Wellness Committee and is working with administrators to implement their proposed revisions. Another group from this workshop pursued increasing accessibility to CAPS, through working with administrator Cathy Pettid following the workshop.

In total, we had seven participants of our workshop join our organization, Mavericks for Change, which we created at the same time as our workshop. This organization serves to create an environment where students feel comfortable and welcome to bring forward issues they are passionate about and to foster collaboration between a diverse group of students (follow us at @mavsforchange on Facebook and Instagram).

making used in the workshop evident through their descriptions of what they had learned.

Based on the results that we observed and the response that we received from students, we believe that our workshop was a success. The substantial turnout demonstrated that a large population of students at our university were interested in leading movements and developing new ideas to solve problems. We attribute the sizable attendance, in part, to the funding that we offered to students. Offering payment appeared to make the workshop more accessible to students, and we hope to use this idea to help create new funded positions for students to be involved in solving university problems. Along with this, the transition of some of the participants to Mavericks for Change provided a sign that workshop participants are interested in continuing their work.

For us as Fellows, the workshop was an excellent opportunity for us to convey the skills that we learned through UIF training to a broader audience. The presentation and visual materials that we created are things that we plan to use in the future for additional workshops or other teaching moments. Seeing how much of an impact our workshop has had makes us excited to continue our work and to incorporate these new ideas and individuals into Mavericks for Change.

To obtain additional metrics on the impact of our workshop, we created a post-survey gaging student’s experience at the workshop and what they learned.

From this survey, we found that students’ interest in changemaking at UNO increased, and students reported wanting to continue work on projects. Furthermore, students were able to retain the method of change45

operations & student life A growing number of Fellows and Faculty Champions are working on projects and processes that students, faculty and leaders can use to improve the higher education experience.

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BOĞAZIÇI UNIVERSITY Arda Ulutürk, Haluk Ziya Tercan Because of online education, the intensity of homework, projects, and quizzes increased. As a result, students told us that they have begun to encounter many challenges, but they often can’t find the right place to share their problems and work on solutions. Therefore, we created our project, BirDerdimVar (BDV), to solve this. A student who has a problem related to school can write his/her problem on our Instagram page (@bdv.boun). We used Instagram because we discovered it was more accessible than a website, and it was easier to collect problems and ideas from students. On our Instagram page, users rate the problems they want to solve and the ideas that they like. Then the selected challenges and ideas are delivered to our brainstorming community coLab to work on. This student-driven community (whose members are students, instructors, and staff) works in project groups to solve the problems using design thinking.

respective project budget. Additionally, we implemented a website with all necessary information about the program and events/ projects of our first two cohorts (www.tuhh. de/alt/uif/home.html). Lastly, we implemented an Instagram account and Facebook page (@uifxtuhh) where we post about our team, our project and share inspiring ideas.

David Erler, Hannah Meier We are each writing a master’s thesis on topics related to UIF under academic supervision of our Faculty Champion Malte Krohn. Hannah conducted a quantitative analysis examining entrepreneurial intentions among students at Hamburg University of Technology using established theories from social psychology. David analyzed how students’ entrepreneurial mindset can be stimulated by university innovation ecosystems. Encompassing and evaluating UIF as a component he compared the innovation ecosystems at our campus and the University of Twente. This allowed us to derive exciting insights and recommended actions to improve our university’s I&E ecosystem.

COLORADO SCHOOL OF MINES

IONA COLLEGE

Indiana Sjahputera

Enjay Brown, Joanna Falisi, Juan Cadile, Melissa Juarez

Our project is called “Event’s Hub,” a service that facilitates cross-campus communication by centralizing all of our campus’ events into one location. We noticed a problem with communication efforts when examining the ecosystem of Iona College. Students are overwhelmed with emails from clubs, academic departments and campus-wide messages, and information often goes unnoticed or gets lost. Many students, especially freshmen and commuters, were missing out on events happening on campus. A central location that allows students to search events and receive reminders to events of their interest in a convenient way will help build greater community on campus.

ISTANBUL TECHNICAL UNIVERSITY Cansu Çevik My project is called “Open Innovation Calls,” which shares the student voice with the school administration and gathers the students’ solutions to problems in campus life. I am organizing questionnaires to send to the students so they can share their feedback. These data obtained from the students will be made into a report and then presented to the school administration. The outcome data will help students to feel free to join the problems with their solutions.

The project that I am working on involves working with alumni of my school to film career videos — talking about what they do in their workplace or in their working environment. These videos will then be sent back to the school, where they will be organized by the majors and the specific fields within the industry of each alum, and they will be made available for students to view. These videos will represent all the different majors offered at Mines, as well as the different interdisciplinary paths within each of the majors. These will cater more towards first-year students in the hopes of properly informing individuals of what people in specific majors do post-graduation.

HAMBURG UNIVERSITY OF TECHNOLOGY David Erler, Hannah Meier, Jannik Jorge Grothusen, Luise Degen As our school is still quite new to the UIF program (3rd cohort this year), our aim is to popularize the program at our university.

In particular, we want to raise awareness among students to attract more participants and convince decision makers. This will help us to gain the needed support and be sure that every future project will be heard and will get the attention it needs and deserves. Recently, we secured a partnership with the TUHH’s business school and a 48

LINGNAN UNIVERSITY Bliss Xiao Qian Tan, Thuy Duong Pham

We are establishing a social enterprise “ReFresh” which upcycles food surplus, particularly fruits and vegetables, into delicious and healthy soup, smoothie, and snacks. ReFresh aims at promoting a sustainable and environmentally friendly lifestyle and raising public awareness of the food waste situation in Hong Kong. In addition, we strive to produce organic food that is more approachable and affordable than ever. We would also address unemployment by recruiting single mothers, students, and underprivileged groups as our main human resources. We are currently preparing for the Hult Prize 2021 Regional Impact Summit.

KHALIFA UNIVERSITY OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY Alia Alkatheeri I have come up with the idea of facilitating student access to any services or departments that he/she is looking for and get their contact information easily. My aim is to ensure that students can easily reach any member of Khalifa University, whether they need help from student services or instructors. I am going to build this idea on an app that is only accessible for KU members. It is a quick way for the students to have access to the right email, the right contact person. It will be private and secure at the same time.

KOÇ UNIVERSITY

MADANAPALLE INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY & SCIENCE

Ahmet Berk Tuzcu, Pinar Donmez

Likhitha Kurapothula, Puthin Kumar Reddy Thallapalli

In our school, there are various facilities and opportunities for students to learn, design and create projects and initiatives.

However, many students are not aware of these opportunities. Even we, as Fellows, did not know exactly that prior to our work on the landscape canvas during UIF training. Thus, we have designed an online Innovation and Entrepreneurship manual, which would highlight tracks for entrepreneurship, alumni relations, courses, facilities like KWORKS and KUSIF and other present activities. It shares present opportunities and related sources and information.

The priority we are working on is MITS WIZZ, an entirely studentoperated internet radio station. We are missing announcements and a little entertainment component on the campus. When we interviewed students, they expressed that they don’t have an opportunity to showcase their talents like singing, public speaking and soft skills. As the youth of today are not habituated to go to the bulletin boards and unaware of the administrative circulars. We are inspired by the announcements in the airports and thought of bringing this culture to the campus. With a passion to integrate information and entertainment, MITS WIZZ came to life. This insight provides entertainment, education and information, the updates in the campus establishes students’ connectivity.

Irem Nur Bulut, Mehmet Enes Erciyes One of the biggest problems in our school was the complexity of information and dates. In our school, there are various different mechanisms of communication of campus events, such as KU Daily emails, Club Activities emails and career-office e-mails. Although there are many great events happening simultaneously, because of the complexity of communication mechanisms (like club activities emails), many of the events couldn’t get the attention they deserved. To solve this issue we have designed KUlendar. KUlendar is an easy to use and understand calendar which includes the information of all the events happening at our school with filtering options and color codes. Read more on page 57.

Irem Nur Bulut, Mehmet Enes Erciyes KUForum is a platform where people can share (anonymously or by giving their name) feedback about the activities, situations or procedures within the school.

Using a voting option, the most important problems that address a greater audience come forward, and people can also track the updates on the problems. This was

designed to be a semi-private platform that would be controlled by the student council.

It would play a role as an interface between the university management and the students by providing first-hand feedback from the students to administration.

LINGNAN UNIVERSITY Bliss Xiao Qian Tan I am working on establishing Eco-Hubs on campus. At these hubs, we offer durable storage boxes that replace corrugated boxes that are used to store students’ belongings during the summer holidays. Moreover, we provide daily recycling services, second-hand sales, workshops, and seminars for students, staff, and the local community to raise their awareness of environmental conservation and preservation. We would form partnerships with recycling companies to collect and recycle paper boxes and other waste. We could collaborate with rele-

vant departments at Lingnan University, for instance, Office of Student Affairs, Office of Comptroller, Warden Offices, Student Hostel Association, and Science Unit in order to access capital and space (for storage and events). In the short run, we expect to eliminate the usage of paper boxes for storage purposes and to reduce paper waste at Lingnan University within 2 years.

LOYOLA UNIVERSITY MARYLAND Christina Gambrell, Hannah Mannering, Meghan Oddy, Natalia Medina Lozada While there are plenty of opportunities to conduct research on campus, many students are unaware of them. We believe that advertising should be improved, so that more students become aware of the opportunities provided to them. We also realize the importance of engaging and educating the first-year students in the 49

importance of innovation. Therefore, we are proposing as a UIF cohort, that our main focus be dedicated to a Research Revamp. The Research Revamp will be focused on giving the existing research office a greater presence on campus through social media and on-campus advertising.

Additionally, our team is working on safety on the shuttle system. To address this issue, we would like to propose a swipe system to enter the shuttle. This way we can ensure that only Loyola students, and staff are riding the shuttle.

MADANAPALLE INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY & SCIENCE Abdul Sameer Shaik As a student I observed that most of my peers are not focused and independent.

This dependency of students on faculty is a pain point for which, Nexus Learning strategy is one of the solutions. This methodology transforms students to be proactive and involved in participatory learning.

Prior instructions and information about the learning content would give them a clear understanding of the concepts before being taught in the classroom. Hands-on experience reduces students’ dependency, makes them self-reliant and research oriented. The collaborative activities of faculty and students shall enhance presentation skills and make them divergent thinkers, so as to go deeper into the learning material.

Being proactive students throw challenges to the faculty and furthermore, a dynamic learning ambiance shall be created. For a developing country like India, though is far from reach, a humble beginning can be made for the implementation, keeping in view with the future demands.

Sai Sumith Gorla, Vishal Meda During our training, we identified the lack of awareness of campus resources is the main problem. MITS campus is robust with many activities and unfortunately, many students were not aware of the activities like seminars, webinars, guest lectures that are happening on the campus. So we thought campus connectivity can help the students and this became our priority. To address this problem, we came up with a solution called MITS FLASH. This is an initiative to publicize event updates on social media accounts like Instagram, Facebook, Twitter that would reach media geeks easily. Later we thought of an e-magazine.

Any pre-scheduled events are also posted via social media so that there would be a swift reach of information. Many beneficiaries are appreciating the efforts of the students and faculty. Now information is all around, opportunities are around and now MITSians enthusiastically participate in the activities of their own choices.

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MICHIGAN TECHNOLOGICAL UNIVERSITY Peter LaMantia I adjusted my original project plans (to improve use of Canvas) to pursue a course registration improvement project. This is because near the end of the semester, many of my peers were complaining to me about the difficulty of registering for classes. This feedback was unprompted, and most of them do not know I am a UIF member so I knew this was something important. I am joining forces with a group called IdeaHub on this project. Over time, my project has continually widened in scope. Some of our campus technology is behind the times, and I have made it a priority to improve and update our systems. Among these things, transitioning from Banner 8 to Banner 9 is huge. That switch alone will vastly improve student and faculty experiences across campus. I can’t think of a better way to lift everyone up.

Rachel May My original project was to assist Rex in a class restructure. After some thinking I decided to pivot and focus more on online learning and how we can keep an effective hybrid learning model in the years to come.

I have been working with students to see what was beneficial this past year and what seemed to make learning harder. My goal is to send out a google form to students and ask for even more feedback on the last year in order to collect more data. After that I plan to meet with stakeholders and present them with the information. I am hoping at that point I will also have an idea on how to best create a hybrid learning model.

Rex Green My project is called Class Improvement. I wish to create a pilot class(es) which uses experiential learning as opposed to traditional homework and exam based learning, and which uses upgrading or competencybased grading, as opposed to a traditional points based grading scale.

MILWAUKEE SCHOOL OF ENGINEERING Alexander Wilhelm Holborn, Edwina Sofia Paredes, Jonathan Wagenknecht Paul Rinaldi As a result of our training and research into the needs of the MSOE innovation and entrepreneurship community, we discovered that there was a disconnect between the resources available to students and the students who might utilize those resources.

We planned to create an online platform

called the Innovation and Entrepreneurship Hub (I&E Hub) where students can find all the resources we have on-campus in an online platform. We have made progress creating a filterable sortable database in Webflow where students will be able to see an updated list of MSOE’s I&E resources, but we have not launched the platform yet.

NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF DEVELOPMENT ADMINISTRATION Bunlang Gerdthungyang, Natchaya Sakulpong, Puch Jaroonwit, Sunisa Intharachan Creating an online platform to support teaching and learning activities was the top priority. First, we are designing the new NIDA hub website as an integrated channel to update activities related to design thinking projects, UIF, and students’ showcases, and also share knowledge about design thinking mindsets and toolsets. Second, Miro and Mural are the current platforms we encourage our colleagues to use as online collaboration tools. Currently, Fellows and Faculty Champions are working with the local communities in Suphan Buri province for designing products and services and solving the problems in the communities. However, due to COVID-19, it’s challenging to get into the field. Most activities with representatives from each community are conducted online where they can help define problems of the communities, propose the idea, or test prototypes.

OHIO UNIVERSITY Ishan Matta, Laura Ndoigo, Melissa Damico We hope to bring together students and faculty members and encourage them to work together to bridge the challenges of online education. This came up because students were not satisfied with the learning experience through online education, while faculty members were doing their very best to deliver to students. We hope to create a set of guiding principles that will nurture a more engaged and dynamic online education experience.

SRI VENKATESWARA COLLEGE OF ENGINEERING Abdul Wadood Shaik, Haritha A S, Renu Guntur, Sowjanya Murari Our strategy called “E-BOX” is to collect various problems that students face in our institution. This idea also focuses on

innovative ideas from students. To achieve this, we have created Google Forms and did our best to make it reach each and every student in our institution. Most of the students made an attempt to express their problems and ideas, which gave us a clear picture of their thoughts. After consolidating the results, we have conveyed the problems to the management. We also discussed the problems and their related solutions with some of the faculty. The innovative ideas will be forwarded to the design thinking club and thereby the student club members will decide which ideas to implement for the betterment of the college. It gave us a great chance to collaborate with students and have a great interaction with them and share the thoughts among the peer group.

UNIVERSITY OF TECHNOLOGY SYDNEY Georgia Kirkpatrick-Jones, Gurvinder Bhatia, Harrison Kellick, Juliet Hodgson

THE OHIO STATE UNIVERSITY Angela Heaney, Kaylee Chang, Mick Rash, Tinia Larkins Initially, our team focused on creating a white paper guide to show students on what resources are currently available on campus in regards to innovation and entrepreneurship. However, upon further research and counseling with faculty, we saw that the true change needs to start at the roots: with the staff and teachers of the university who have such a huge impact on the mindset of the students. Therefore, instead of creating a white paper, we wish to interview a wide range of staff on campus, getting a better understanding of their current ideas of innovation within the classroom. Our goal is to create an actionable document that can be used to inform the leadership here of the current environment surrounding efforts to incorporate innovation and entrepreneurship across campus.

UNIVERSITY OF RICHMOND Danny Anderson, Emma Johnson, Nichole Schiff, Sophia Hartman Across the university, many students may already choose to conduct research with professors during an “independent research study” course. We are proposing that an additional option for independent research studies be created, during which students could help professors design or restructure their courses. This would not replace pre-existing independent studies/ take the place of “traditional” research; it would merely offer students the opportunity to help design/restructure course content. Course design would be a new type of research at UR that most universities do not have, providing our students with the exciting opportunity to lead the way in new methods of engaging with course content.

Our research revealed an opportunity space highlighting what students feel excluded from, are currently unaware of or don’t see value in. Namely, we wanted to target “How might we improve student engagement with innovation and entrepreneurship (I&E)?”. Each of our team members have taken leadership of one project area whilst also supporting each other.

Harrison is focused on introducing I&E to students from the beginning of their university journey. This includes incorporating workshops into their orientation experience, and integrating I&E into first year subjects such as ‘Engineering Communication’ and ‘Communication for IT Professionals,’ which are a requisite for all first year engineering and information technology students. To do this, Harrison and the team are developing Introduction to Design Thinking videos to be shown in the first weeks of these subjects.

Juliet is leading a series of workshops based around the World Economic Forum top 10 skills for 2025. She hopes to highlight the value of developing skills that go beyond what is learned in class and encourage students to take part in I&E extracurricular activities.

Georgia is focused on creating an interactive resource for students to learn more about I&E opportunities at UTS. This resource is called “UTS StartNet” and will allow students from across the university to navigate I&E resources that are available to them. StartNet is available online for students to explore at their own pace and discover what interests them. Georgia wants to provide a means of connecting I&E resources to students in a fun and interactive way.

Gurvinder is focused on helping students see the value of I&E in their careers. This initiative helps students as they progress through their degree and builds on their exposure to different opportunities that increasingly involve I&E. The slow buildup allows students to contextualize the uses of I&E as they discover more about their careers and interests in their field. This avoids encumbering them with content that may not seem immediately relevant to their careers.

The programs involved with this initiative are run in conjunction with industry to catalyze the interest of students in their I&Efocused careers and retain engagement with the UIF body.

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UNIVERSITY OF TULSA Andrew Varvara, Ann Marie Flusche, Freddy Ward The campus project we have been working on since the end of training is titled True Dual Enrollment. This is a project to remake the current dual enrollment (high school students earning TU college credits in high school) system at TU. This will benefit TU by providing additional income and it will benefit rural Oklahoma students.

Right now, we believe the cost per credit hour is a very large barrier to entry, which is perhaps why only seven students are enrolled in this program right now. Our project aims to competitively price our new dual enrollment system that focuses on providing online college credits using TU’s newly developed online systems to three different groups. Our first target group is the students in Oklahoma who are currently enrolled in dual enrollment courses at other universities. The competitive pricing and flaunting of TU’s many groundbreaking achievements will attract some of this audience. Our second target group is rural Oklahoma students who do not receive much exposure to college prior to attending. This project would provide free courses to these students (awarded on a merit/recommendation basis). These college credits would only be applicable at TU, but if they go to another college, they will already have had exposure to classes. Finally, TU has an incredibly diverse campus, and our third target group is other countries with high enrollment.

Ghulam Haider, Suraj Vodnala Our aim is to improve teaching quality and coherence during the transition to an online setting. We have decided to test the concept of flipped classroom teaching.

We have recently decided to also pursue student engagement in the classroom. We also think that feedback plays a huge role in how a teacher teaches, after all the teaching process is dynamic. In this line of thought, we thought it essential to give additional opportunities to provide feedback to students (in the form of a midterm survey). Ghulam, as a TA, is in a perfect position to try and implement several of the ideas that we have come up with. While the flipped classroom teaching methodology remains primary, increased student engagement and availability to students are also concepts we want to test.

Sheharyar Malik, Srivats Srinivasan After a semester of a hybrid of in-person and virtual learning, we noticed dramatic changes to social circles. Socializing became more insular and people were less likely to interact with those outside their very close friend groups due to cancellations, major changes or how clubs/activ52

ities were conducted. This compounded the stratification that already existed at our school, where we felt many people did not interact with people outside of their major, sport, fraternity, sorority, etc.

After interviews and surveys with many students confirming our own experiences, we began thinking about TU Houses, a school tradition that immediately connects students across strata. We are working to create 3 Houses that students are assigned to starting freshman year that allow people to belong to a group, create friends quickly, and have easy access to mentorship via upperclassmen and faculty members that belong to their House. Through the year, faculty/upperclassmen would hold House events to promote bonding through friendly competition between houses in field day/athletic/academic activities, with a banquet at the end of the year to celebrate the House’s achievements. Importantly, people can network with others who they wouldn’t in any other scenario, even with those where they don’t share any particular hobbies/interest. We hope to pilot this group with a small group in the near future.

UNIVERSITY OF TWENTE Marlen Braun, Rianne Dalhuisen, Thomas Goudsblom Our project focuses on how student well-being at our university can systematically be improved. What aspects help students to feel good, motivated, beloved etc.? Currently, our university offers many workshops related to stress management and mindfulness and information on what to do if you feel unmotivated, depressed or lonely. Together with the Student Union, the Student Wellbeing Implementation Group and the Marketing & Communication department at our university we are working on a video campaign. The goal of this campaign is to show UT students that they are not alone in the challenges they are facing, and motivate them to stay in contact with their peers, check-up on fellow students and reach out to professionals in case they need help. It shows that their problems, questions, struggles and anxieties are valid and recognized. The video campaign is planned to be released in the autumn semester of 2021.

Next to this, we have organized a workshop named “Visualize your Future in 5.400 seconds.” The main goal of the workshop was to help students think about and discuss their futures, and set SMART goals needed to achieve them. One of the goals they had set, needed to be completed within the upcoming month.

Furthermore, to improve the information provision on student well-being by the university. A panel discussion has been organized with students to find out in what

ways the information provision could be improved. The results have been shared and discussed with the relevant stakeholders and currently a strategy is being made on how to implement these improvements.

VIDYAVARDHAKA COLLEGE OF ENGINEERING Avinash Arun Nadig, Krishnakanth Pai, Numaan Daulatabad, Varsha Chandrashekar When we held a brainstorming session regarding the impact we would love to see on our college campus, we were intrigued by the concept of emotional intelligence.

We sketched out the resources available for us on campus and found out that there was a significant gap in the deliverance of the thoughts into execution. We figured that students need a medium for expressing their thoughts and problems, as the resources needed for them were already made available. We worked alongside the college counselor in delivering a survey for students at the entire college. The counselor and her colleagues agreed to counsel students who were found to be in immediate need, and to train Fellows and faculty to notice the early signs of mental issues among students.

WICHITA STATE UNIVERSITY Alexander King, Angelique Banh, Corbin Prichard, Jadie Chauncey Our team is working on the Innovate @ Wichita State video series to help students better navigate what tools (physical, administrative and educational) they have at their disposal and how they might initiate and develop projects of their own. This seemed like the most promising project because we discovered that most students were not aware of the free, awesome resources offered at Wichita State.

SMART TEACHING FOR THEORETICAL KNOWLEDGE AND IMPROVING PRACTICAL ORIENTED KNOWLEDGE “Education is what remains after one has forgotten what one has learned in school.” - Albert Einstein

By Aditya Shasank PSKPVS Aditya College of Engineering University Innovation Fellow

The process of learning does not hold any bound. We aim to emphasize the learning concepts with the help of visuals and performing activities.

During my secondary school years, my physics instructor used to teach topics using new approaches like showing the working of a principle using visual graphics, by doing a particular activity in class related to lecture, or by making a piece of chalk into smaller granules hence explaining about particles and many more. From all his teaching methodologies, I was inspired by this approach and henceforth the name Smart Teaching and started working on an impact project called Smart Teaching of Theoretical Education and Improving Practical Oriented Education. My aim is to teach the lectures using the smart approach and provide the practical oriented approach for learners to perform hands-on, because when you do something experientially, you remember better.

Keeping this view in mind, we have planned for smart classroom learning to be introduced at my school. This smart classroom education system makes students get more interesting lectures and also increases student participation in a classroom environment.

Through this Smart Teaching concept, we want the learners to facilitate themselves in an environment; in which later the lacking concepts will be bridged by the teachers. The learners activate and build background knowledge, process information, transform their learning into a product (a picture, a mind map, or a presentation) that shows what they know, and reflect on their learning. Then the teacher will fill the gaps that remain.

Some of the Smart Teaching approaches are Personalized Teaching, Project-Based Teaching, Real-World Teaching, Place-Based Teaching. Structured talks

and assessments will be made part of the process of learning, which enables to enhance the thinking of all learners by the means of inclusivity and differentiation and realize the goals. Through reviewing, we can find that a Smart Teaching environment emphasizes learner-centric, personalized and adaptive teaching service, interactive and collaborative tools, context-aware and ubiquitous access. Additionally, a Smart Teaching environment aims to support effective, efficient and meaningful learning for learners.

The use of technology in education can bring a huge change. The Internet and e-learning can make the classroom environment extremely amazing when paired with Smart Teaching. Teaching through digital platforms using facilities like computers, the internet, and multimedia devices will be used as a common tool in the future and we aspire to take a step towards it.

Theoretical knowledge of skill-based subjects needs to be supported by practical hands-on experience.

Subjects like teaching and engineering are skill-based.

In these subjects, practical knowledge is more important than theoretical knowledge. Practical work includes experiments in laboratories, study tours, projects, assignments, etc. We must acknowledge the fact that the advantages of practical work are unfathomable.

Gaining theoretical knowledge holds less value until and unless students can apply it for practical purposes.

• When you do something with your hands you remember better.

• Practical work promotes experiential learning.

• Practical work encourages self-learning.

• Practical work familiarizes students with tools and equipment that they will be required to use.

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Credit venimo / Adobe Stock

• Practice leads to perfection.

• One cannot become an expert overnight; the greater the practice, the greater the expertise.

• Practical work is a good change from the monotonous lecture method.

• Students are required to participate actively in practical activities.

• Involvement of students is more in practical work.

• Practical work complements the theory.

• Practical assignments are often carried out in groups. Group work helps to inculcate social values and values like sharing, cooperation, team spirit, compassion, etc.

• Practical work makes students independent and increases their confidence Overall, we aspire to grow the learning curve by providing the students with the potentially best learning environment to identify, polish their potential and nurture their talents. Aiding and supporting students to become self-aware and in helping them explore the umpteen number of possibilities around so that they can make a wise decision in the long run, is a visionary we aspire to present. This would eventually help them strive to create the best version of themselves, dreaming and striving for a better future along with being a responsible global citizen.

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CHANGE HAND IN HAND WITH TECHNOLOGY Connecting students and systems By İrem Nur Bulut Koç University University Innovation Fellow You just woke up and checked your phone. There are a few messages from your friends about a new meme and upcoming quizzes, and a lot of emails related to school. Oh no! You wonder what could have happened for the administration to send you emails at 11:38 pm Saturday. You then urgently check and realize that they were all related to an event that you have seen the advertisement for at least two times beforehand.

This was my life until very recently. Not only me but also many students in my school were sick of receiving so many school emails, and many of them have blocked or reported the school’s career accounts. Because of this spamming, many of the students miss opportunities.

When we realized that this is a problem for the majority of students, we decided to take action as Fellows.

As a group of Fellows who are studying either business or engineering, we searched the market for an existing solution. We found a few ideas, however they were either developed by separate entities or they were not open to the public, thus we were unable to gather information about them.

Hence, we have designed KUlendar, which is an online portal that allows students to filter the events that are held in Koç University. At the moment, it only shows career events filtered for the interest of each individual.

However, as a long term goal, we also want to unite our separate systems and create a platform on which the students can view not only events held by Koç University but also their deadlines and separate projects. In the future, it may also be used as an united calendar portal between universities across the globe to enable cross cultural innovation and entrepreneurship.

In the development process of our app, we have decided to create a UIF community to develop our projects better with the help of multiple perspectives.

We are now a big family consisting of individuals from very different backgrounds who are able to find and solve problems from their own lives. Although we had problems because we were also continuously developing three other projects during the development of KUlendar, we have realized that we can use the insights gained from other projects in KUlendar, which I believe have enriched our calendar portal project further.

Mobile home screen of KUlendar, courtesy of İrem Nur Bulut

During the development process, we were challenged as a team and on an individual level, and it led us to grow. For example, even though I have been a team leader for various projects, I never realized how hard it would be to direct a technical team. Because there were also a lot of necessary software related concepts that I was not aware of, to direct our team correctly, I had to first learn them on my own. However, I can proudly say that we have become a good team and friends although we have never even seen each other in real life. We still think that our projects are able to go much further and continuously seek new practices.

This is the story of our solution and we think that tomorrow we can solve another problem better with your help. This was our solution, what would be yours?

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IGNITING THE CREATIVE SPARK OF ENTREPRENEURSHIP Celebrating the creative class of student entrepreneurs

By Alyssa Martina, J.D. MBA Director of the Doherty Center for Creativity, Innovation & Entrepreneurship, Elon University Faculty Innovation Fellows Candidate

Muhammad Yunus, founder of Grameen Bank, emphasized the notion that we are all entrepreneurs.

The creative spark which animates entrepreneurship is something that most people possess, albeit often unknowingly.

As many researchers now acknowledge, however, creativity is a human quality that exists in all of us but is often stifled rather than encouraged. So the disconnect between creativity and entrepreneurship has ensued for too long.

Instead, the image of Mark Zuckerberg is too often evoked whenever one thinks of the scrappy college entrepreneur toiling away in his or her dorm room and coming up with a lightning bolt innovation. This notion is outdated and out of touch with the reality of many of today’s creative class of entrepreneurs. Ventures may vary from high tech to low tech to no tech and still represent viable entrepreneurial ventures. At many universities, university entrepreneurial centers recognize that entrepreneurs come in all shapes and sizes and animate and support any number of unique student ventures.

In an effort to help creative entrepreneurs, the Doherty Center for Creativity, Innovation, and Entrepreneurship at Elon University has embarked on one aspect of this initiative called “Marketplace Under the Oaks” to celebrate its creative class of student entrepreneurs on campus. At the core of my work in the Faculty Innovation Fellows program and as the Director of Elon’s Doherty Center, I am leading a three prong, multi-year initiative focused on three groups of entrepreneurs, a) Black Students/Students of Color; b) the “Creative Class” of Students; and c) Low tech startups.

By doing so, I hope to support the non-traditional but ever relevant entrepreneurially-driven students.

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By promoting creative small businesses, students are encouraged to grow and thrive under this “tent” of the new Creator economy. Celebrating these students as “creativepreneurs” the Doherty Center is focused on finding ways to support Elon students through their entrepreneurship and creative endeavors. This initiative helps all students explore their creative selves and explore what opportunities can be pursued as a result.

By building a community of student creatives, it offers the opportunity for students to sell products through pop-up stores with an actual visual showcase of their work product for purchase. This initiative allows students to take smaller risks in creating student businesses where they can pursue dreams of being an entrepreneur without the high tech/high growth metrics that are attached to traditional technological ventures.

It also allows all students to embark on this creative journey and breaks down barriers across campus by connecting students with a common creative spirit.

Marketplace is a holistic effort, embracing not only a student showcase but also promotion of student businesses through social media and news outlets, pop-up events, guest speakers and workshops, networking opportunities, business counseling, and introductions to professionals. Although a part of Elon’s Love School of Business, Doherty Center works closely with Elon Law School and professors across campus including Elon’s engineering, STEM and communications programs to help the students advance their businesses.

Students at Elon are seeing the value of this initiative.

As Sarina Abraham ’21, founder of “Get Stoned,” a jewelry company, stated, “Marketplace Under the Oaks’ true purpose is to help students build and develop their businesses. It’s a great resource and has helped my business grow and get the word out.”

Credit Casey Claflin

Students are enjoying the opportunity to reawaken their creative instincts and develop side-hustle businesses while on campus. Caroline Durham ‘23, Elon student and owner of the Travelin’ Teacher noted that, “Marketplace Under the Oaks has provided an incredible plethora of resources for small businesses for students, alumni, and faculty.... They truly are there to help Elon’s small businesses thrive. Working with the Marketplace under the Oaks through the Doherty Center has been one of the best experiences I have had in my time at Elon.”

“We understand that many in our network and those considering joining in on all of the fun may not necessarily have products or services for sale but are still entrepreneurial at heart. We still want to include them to amplify the work that they are doing regardless of whether they have a product or service to sell,” stated Claire Bach, Doherty Center scholar intern and the student co-founder of Marketplace Under the Oaks.

Stephen Hawthorne ’21, co-owner of clothing enterprise “Good to See You” values the importance of this new initiative. “The Doherty Center’s ‘Marketplace Under the Oaks’ has allowed my company to market in ways not accessible before. The Doherty Center and Alyssa Martina have provided great guidance in helping us grow our company. They assisted us in financial support through the Acorn Fund, provided legal guidance, and more. We are extremely grateful for the entrepreneurship program here at Elon and the ‘Good to See You’ team hopes to continue to utilize these resources on campus to grow our company!”

Plans to expand on the Marketplace framework include a small venture fund specifically directed to Elon’s creativepreneurs. This fund would provide grants to student creatives who wish to launch a small

Credit Casey Claflin

business as well as underrepresented students of Color and low-tech ventures on campus.

While the Doherty Center still works with students who have high-tech startups with one-on-one business counseling through the Center’s “Start-Up Shop,” the ability to also include student creatives in casting its net has been extraordinarily gratifying and validates that the Creator economy has a strong role in entrepreneurship and at Elon.

This Marketplace initiative has been an integration of creativity, innovation and entrepreneurship, which fits into the mission of the Center. It has been a joy to work with these students, and their ventures, all driven by the creative “side hustle” concept of entrepreneurship.

Finding this unique way to meet the needs and passion of Elon students has been extremely rewarding and an important way to celebrate the nature of entrepreneurship that underscores the creative spark in everyone.

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WHERE CAN YOUR STUDENTS GO INNOVATE? MAP IT OUT FOR THEM! An insider’s guide to community resources, written by-students for-students

By Charles M. Wood, Ph.D. Professor of Marketing, The University of Tulsa Faculty Innovation Fellows Candidate

Twenty Faculty Innovation Fellows candidates from around the world were recently challenged by the University Innovation Fellows program to design and implement projects that would enhance the culture of innovation in universities. As part of this cohort and follow-up meetings, I saw all of us go in twenty different creative directions! However, we all started at the same place — step #1 in the design thinking process: “Gain empathy for the people you are trying to serve.”

The interviews and discussions with students at my school helped me discover that many didn’t really get to know the surrounding community until their junior or senior year. And what’s more, hardly any were aware of the many great resources available — on-campus and off-campus — to help students make their innovative ideas a reality. This was the gap I set out to fill.

Think about it — college is really a giant safety net for students. It is the ideal time to give birth to new ideas and to try them out to see if they work. Lots of tremendous ideas have been developed by college students.

However, most students simply don’t realize they are surrounded by mentors and resources (disguised as faculty, staff, and community members), nor do they realize there are few negative consequences if their ideas don’t pan out as planned. After percolating on this question, an idea emerged to create a “by students — for students” solution. I asked upperclassmen what they considered to be the best innovation and entrepreneurship resources in the local community, and other insider information regarding the best coffee shops to study in, best concert venues, cheap eats, and great city parks to blow off steam. This idea gave birth to the “Where 2 Go Innovate Map.” We simply put these locations on an easy-to-use map of the city along with brief descriptions and tips regarding each place.

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In a later iteration of a prototype map, we also asked for input from university staff and faculty, who know more of the “hidden gems” in the community. We made sure to highlight and describe the local makerspaces, co-working spaces, incubators, startup advisory groups, entrepreneurship workshops, and other resources to encourage students of all majors to explore their city and get involved with the local innovation ecosystem.

I&E starting points included how to get a guided tour of the Makerspaces and co-working spaces, and the city’s regular workshops and networking events such as One Million Cups. An old-school fold up travel map format was employed to fit in students’ back pockets easily.

During feedback sessions, the other Faculty Innovation Fellows encouraged me to also develop a Google Map version so students could click on the most interesting locations and get driving directions. Great idea! We intend to give copies of these full-color maps to incoming freshmen as a gift from the university’s upperclassmen, and a QR code will take them to the Google Map version.

In addition to benefiting college students, the Map also helps I&E-related organizations in the local community, recent startup firms, local businesses and non-profits, and the university’s offices in charge of recruiting and new student orientation. Every university can enjoy the benefits of a project like this and encourage their students to explore local I&E resources and foster a culture of innovation.

So far, this idea has received a strong positive response, from university administration to current and incoming students. I hope to refine the idea further by developing a complete, step-by-step guide with worksheets so others can learn how to help their students enjoy the safety net of college and be called “innovators” while still in school. So let’s map it out for them!

Courtesy of Charles Wood

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SHOCK THIS SPACE! Crafting a student-centered effort to nurture accessibility at WSU

By Darren DeFrain Professor of English, Wichita State University Faculty Innovation Fellows Candidate

Students and faculty here at Wichita State University (and beyond) typically accept that universities are wellserved to make sure they offer equitable and accessible education for all students. If you’re fully sighted, imagine attending a lecture where the only seat you could find was near the back and the lecturer’s slides were in such a small font and on such a small screen that you couldn’t follow along; imagine you couldn’t even get into the lecture space in your wheelchair, or if you could, you needed to ask for help from strangers who were then only able to awkwardly sit you beside the speaker’s podium; imagine you can’t hear, but you read lips well enough — but then you attend a lecture where the speaker decided to liven up their presentation at the last minute by playing several pop songs to illustrate key points.

What faculty and students sometimes don’t understand is that embracing accessibility and equitability in education can actually create some of the most potent collision spaces on campus. Changing facilities is one difficulty, but to nurture and sustain effective change, the campus culture also needs to be changed. Campuses are places that value competing and conflicting ideas, but this kind of attitude can be something for those averse to change to hide behind. “I shouldn’t have to change my whole curriculum for one student”; “Why can’t they just take classes with other students with similar needs?”; “Doing everything necessary to make my class/classroom accessible will compromise the quality for other students”; “Disabled students don’t even typically have interest in these classes.” Even with an administration committed to creating and supporting a fully accessible campus, convincing skeptical faculty and busy students that accessibility ultimately benefits everyone needs to be part of any solution.

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During my time teaching English, I have catalogued a library of anecdotes concerning what happens when universities don’t take accessibility seriously or seriously enough. I’ve talked to peers at other institutions who unveiled new laboratories, meant to showcase innovation and entrepreneurial vision, only to have someone show up at the launch in a wheelchair who can’t easily navigate the space. While this isn’t something any public-facing university wants to project, it goes beyond embarrassment (for the institution and the affected individuals).

Lawsuits against institutions that fail in their efforts to make their classes and spaces accessible and equitable are gaining steam. We are more than 30 years on from The Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990, and affected Americans looking to get their education or take part in public events at public colleges and universities probably feel their patience at its limits. If colleges and universities had more deeply understood these issues after the ADA, there wouldn’t be this sense of urgency now to make overdo changes and repairs to facilities and offerings. Change is always hardest when it needs to happen yesterday.

The Shock This Space! App looks to marshal the energies and talents of WSU students to increase campus accessibility awareness and potential through a unique combination of graphic storytelling and 3D modeling.

Working with Disability Services, Shocker Studios, and the Office of Student Involvement, Shock This Space! will start with a hack-a-thon this fall (2021). Just prior to the hack-a-thon, students will provide opportunities for faculty and peers to experience life without sight, sound, or full mobility. At the hack-a-thon, students from all walks will then generate graphic stories (comics) that explain and explore what accessibility is

Credit Karlee Cooper

and why it is important for the entire WSU community. These narratives will then be archived for ease of access on the app (in fully accessible ways!).

There will be prizes awarded to the teams who create the best graphic narratives that explain accessibility and why it is important for the campus overall.

But the functionality of the app doesn’t stop there.

Once completed, the app will be able to use 3D modeling to explore existing campus spaces to see if they are fully accessible. If they’re not, users can utilize 3D modeling technology to digitally re-design the spaces and consider and suggest improvements.

The next phase of the process will be to work with the folks at Shocker Studios to create the 3D modeling features so that students, faculty and members of the public can explore campus spaces to see how accessible they are. Once the graphic narratives are finished, they will be digitized and archived on the finished app as well. I hope the app will continue to receive such graphic narratives and that this “library” might make its way to other campuses.

I developed this concept (with the explicit help of my mentors) during my time in the Faculty Innovation Fellows Program. I initially felt a little overwhelmed in my FIF cohort, given how little my entire career has intersected with the Engineering side of campus. So I wanted to do something in my wheelhouse. Perhaps because of my Humanities background, I have been especially drawn to the first phase of Design Thinking: Empathizing. I frequently work with our Disabilities Services, so I have a sense of what so many of our students contend with in trying to be truly part of our campus. Students drive cultural change on campus, so this project is meant to involve students at every step to help engage their peers and even drag along the occasional unwilling or unsuspecting faculty member.

I certainly look forward to our students having fun creating these narratives. And hopefully their agency in this project leads to better and better understanding as to how we continue to make WSU a place where students feel welcome to learn and contribute.

I have been working with Kelly Johnson at Shocker Studios, WSU Disability Services, Tia Hill, WSU’s Assistant Director of Student Involvement, and Disability Services. Hill’s ambition is to start an advertising blitz later this spring to generate enthusiasm ahead of fall’s hack-a-thon. Students can create their own teams, or they can be put onto teams that balance drawing, storytelling, and other skills. After so much isolation due to COVID, the hackathon promises to create an opportunity for students to work together in groups to create something fun, functional, and that develops empathy.

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spaces Work on a class project, create a business, build a prototype with paper and glue, talk about life. Each year, members of our community create and reimagine spaces (both physical and virtual) for students and faculty to learn together.

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BUCKNELL UNIVERSITY Caitlyn Schuette My project aims to create better work spaces in first-year dorms. Currently the spaces for students to work and build community in our campus’s first year dorms are outdated and in some cases, nonexistent.

My goal is to use design thinking principles to update and create spaces where first year students can work collaboratively and form a community.

Taylor Graybill My campus project is a management themed residential college at Bucknell University. Residential colleges at Bucknell are programs where first-year students live in themed communities. They not only take a course their first semester focused on this subject, but also go beyond the classroom with field trips, speakers, research projects, and more. While Bucknell has a diverse range of options available, highlighting the arts, sciences, and engineering, I noticed an opportunity for a management theme based on the Freeman College of Management. This program would introduce students to the foundational ideas and values that make up the Freeman College of Management (majors, career paths, skills) as well as educate participants in entrepreneurship, innovation, design thinking, sustainability, and more. The goal is to allow students to connect during their first semester, find their passion, or simply learn useful skills or knowledge that will help them along their journey.

COLORADO SCHOOL OF MINES Ashley Dunivan, Johnny Desrosiers The project we’ve been working on is a “Creative Space” on campus. Mines is heavily STEM oriented, so there are many technical spaces (3D printing, building electrical components, etc.). Even though engineers are technical, they can still create and enjoy art. We would love to provide a space on campus where students can create and display (if they desire) their works of art. The space would have basic art supplies (colored pencils, crayons, markers, paints, butcher paper, etc.) available at all times. The main goal is for this to be a space for all — a place of creativity, equality, and joy.

UNIVERSIDAD DE LOS ANDES, CHILE Carolina Orueta, Constanza Orellana, Fiorella Bacigalupo, Victoria Rozas

We planned to create a space, MakerSpace UANDES, on campus to develop an innovative and entrepreneurial community. The makerspace would offer regular pop ups, courses and workshops with one main topic each month in order to create entrepreneurial ideas towards the topic. It would be open for the whole “Uandes” community, for students from different ages and courses to meet for one common thing: innovation. The makerspace will have mentors to support students and their projects and create bonds between professors and students. When we presented our idea to the Innovation Department at our University, we learned there was already a plan for a makerspace, which was put on hold because of the pandemic. We pivoted, and instead of focusing on the space itself, we set out to build momentum, make the students’ point of view heard and for ways in which to help that space come alive and engage the community. Our project presentation has been critical to gather support from the different schools and the University leadership, and has been used as a tool to let the students’ voice be heard. It was also instrumental in the development of the “Innovación Social” project, which is the starting point for fostering and supporting a richer social entrepreneurship ecosystem at our university.

UNIVERSIDAD DE INGENIERÍA Y TECNOLOGÍA Marcela Yeckle, Mirella Rivas, Thalí­a Leyton, Valeria Aguayo We are creating the Design Lab, a virtual platform focused on giving the students the essential tools and materials to innovate and develop their entrepreneurial mindset in any project they are involved and working on. Also, students will have the opportunity to start projects from the beginning.

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Additionally, the Design Lab will have a virtual consulting site, in which students will schedule a meeting with us and talk about their projects. Our experience will help them to choose a special toolkit to start or develop their entrepreneurial ideas. The main objective of this website is to develop a virtual and comfortable experience for students by helping them to accelerate the acquisition of new knowledge with I&E digital materials and resources. We want to transform every place into a space to design.

INSPIRING OTHERS BY FORGING YOUR PATH At SIU Carbondale, I built a coalition of innovation students to transform our SIU Green Roof into a multidisciplinary research facility for students to explore their own passions through projects and research.

By Nelson Fernandes Southern Illinois University Carbondale University Innovation Fellow Every journey starts with a single step. The destination may appear long and hard. At times, you may encounter challenges, demanding you to grow and open your mind to new ideas. However, your journey may not be a lonely one.

During my time as a Fellow at SIU Carbondale, I have been exposed to a variety of opportunities to challenge myself for growth. One experience is increasing the accessibility of opportunities for our students to learn and develop their own passions through interdisciplinary collaboration.

In Carbondale, Illinois, we are fortunate to have innovative pioneers in our history including one individual who led the installation of our green roof in 2009. This 5000 square foot outdoor research facility is located in the center of campus on our Agriculture Building. The SIU Green Roof is filled with different native plants to Southern Illinois as well as urban horticulture research projects which grow in a six inch soilless medium.

During my first visit to the green roof, I was blown away by the intuitive design; however, more by the potential for student engagement which has been on a decline for the past several years. Similar to an unfinished project, my mind began cranking and envisioning the future.

How might I explore my passions to create a greater impact on campus and the community?

As an engineering student, I am passionate about increasing sustainability and renewable energy installations. Having an outdoor research space is perfect for experimenting with solar and wind technologies! The opportunity to collaborate with a team to install renewable energy is an interesting process from the initial feasibility study, design phase, and the installation.

However, how might we encourage future Salukis to find their passions through the green roof in a wide variety of topics and fields, specifically clean energy?

My primary project is focused on transforming our existing green space into a multidisciplinary innovation hub, specifically for encouraging student engagement in emerging technologies! We recruited a cross-functional team of innovative students from different disciplines and universities collaborating on our renewable energy projects. The projects, such as the temporary wind turbine, will be visible from the sidewalk which will spark

Courtesy of Nelson Fernandes

curiosity among students to make a connection between the green roof and exploring their passions on-campus.

We decided to lead by example through installing our own projects which includes improving the irrigation system through machine learning, small wind turbines, and a photovoltaic system for power generation.

Personally, leading a cross-functional and virtual team of friends and peers was a challenge in the beginning.

Specifically building personal connections among those who live hundreds of miles apart and never met physically. The pandemic has trained us to step outside of our comfort zone and make connections digitally over social media and various messaging platforms. However, our team saw exponential growth when my original vision transformed into our team’s shared vision for the SIU Green Roof and clean energy opportunities on-campus.

I inspired everyone to join, but we each added our own uniqueness to create something better where we each hold our own ownership. Now, our team is experiencing the effect of our passion driven projects as an inspiration for current and future students to pursue their own passions on-campus. The quote, “greatness attracts greatness,” is true for passion. SIU Carbondale fosters a culture of innovation and sustainability which holds true to date as students, faculty, and staff continue to find ways of forging their paths which results in more innovation, more collaboration, more inspiration for the future generations.

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THE INGENUITY HUB Developing a “Seamless Classroom” at the University of North Florida

By Jeff Chamberlain Dean, Hicks Honors College, University of North Florida Faculty Innovation Fellows Candidate

How can the University of North Florida ramp up innovation and collaboration among students and faculty in the post-pandemic world? Generation Z is the most digitally interconnected in history, but its members still hanker for personal interaction, so they need the opportunity to connect in person. UNF is committed to the idea of the “seamless classroom” — a space for learning that brings students together, capitalizes on their digital knowhow, connects them to the local and global community, and fosters innovation and new approaches to solving problems. If UNF can position itself as a model of the “seamless classroom,” it will become extremely attractive to bright, engaged, and dedicated students. So what would the “seamless classroom” look like?

A great model will be the “Ingenuity Hub” we are planning for the Hicks Honors College Learning/Living Center, which will include both a physical center and virtual collaboration space accessible 24/7. The Living/ Learning Center, with a tentative completion date of 2023, will itself be the focus of a ferment of ideas and innovation, since the integration of student residences with academic and learning spaces stimulates greater learning and creativity. The facility is being planned as a learning building — a state-of-the-art building (net zero on energy if possible) where all of us who reside and work learn to live more naturally, sustainably, and resourcefully.

At the very heart of the building — at the center and confluence of living and learning — will be the Ingenuity Hub. It will have a large touchscreen interface which showcases the collaborations going on using an integrated platform such as Bluescape — collaborations that will be taking place in the Hub, but also all over campus, in the Jacksonville community, and, 66

indeed, from any connected device in the world. It will, in essence, be a classroom with maker space-type resources, high-tech wizardry, and the large touchscreen interface. The touchscreen, which will be visible to people walking along the corridor spines of the building, will draw people in, engage them, and help them see the connections and possibilities in a very tangible way.

The Hub will be a portal of seamless connection and collaboration with the world.

The Ingenuity Hub is a project I am working on as part of my role as a Faculty Innovation Candidate with the University Innovation Fellows (UIF) program. It’s not the type of project I envisioned when I first became an academic. I am not a typical “tech geek” — I am a historian of Early Modern England. When I got into honors education, though, I became an advocate for multi- and interdisciplinary education. I worked with faculty (in Business, Engineering, and other disciplines which were pretty foreign to me) who were doing cutting-edge work with students, and I became enthralled with the opportunities to engage students in problemsolving using the latest collaboration technology. I understood how Humanities was vital to innovation because it was a window on the human condition, and helped engender the empathy which is so vital to Design Thinking, human-centered design, and other innovation approaches. I learned to let students lead the way in terms of keeping on top of the latest software and technological tools, and found that they were more motivated to engage when they were able to work in both a virtual and in-person environment.

I am working with designers, facilities managers, faculty, students, and donors to create a space for interaction and innovation that will encourage students engaged in interdisciplinary projects to solve some of

Designing a makerspace in Bluescape, courtesy of Bluescape

the greatest problems locally and globally. A pilot is already beginning where UNF’s current cohort of student UI Fellows is working in an online platform to create the virtual aspects of the maker space. Even much of the planning of the physical space will be done through the online hub, where students, faculty, and staff can contribute ideas and innovations to be incorporated into the building and network. Using a platform like Bluescape, students and faculty can collaborate online by using all of the best tools of technology in one user-friendly virtual space. Designs can be laid out, plans structured, text added by keyboard or writing, documents and images shared (and accessed with one click), and even video conferencing in the same virtual space (you don’t have to toggle back and forth between video and planning space). Furthermore, the whole online collaboration space can be accessed on a large touchscreen connected to a computer, which then forms an interactive “collaboration wall” which others can access from computers or laptops in real time or asynchronously.

Once the Hub is up and running, students from Self and Society, an Honors first-year-experience course, will work collaboratively to create actionable projects to address the UN Sustainable Development Goals.

Students who participate in the University Innovation Fellows program will coordinate their projects using the hub and network. And UN Millennium Fellows will use it to innovate, ideate, and develop their initiatives.

Beyond this, the Hicks Honors College will invite faculty from across the university and a variety of other organizations (like Student Government) to use the Hub for projects and problem-solving exercises.

Collaboration room using a Bluescape “blue wall” touch screen, courtesy of Bluescape

in the College of Education and Human Services, the Carpenter Library’s Virtual Learning Center, and the Coggin College of Business’s Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation. The physical center will make available everything from LEGOs to computer-aided design programs, but will focus primarily on collaboration for innovation and social change.

Generation Z students expect to be actively engaged and involved. They are primed to innovate and are ingenious in applying technology to solve problems. We need to give them every tool we can and to keep them connected and engaged. The Hicks Honors College is ideally suited to creating this Hub: it recruits some of the brightest, most engaged undergraduates at the university; it is interdisciplinary in focus and can connect students and faculty from units across campus; and the Honors program is centered on engaged learning for the greater good. Our community and global partners are eager to join with us to collectively develop new plans and products for global sustainability.

The Ingenuity Hub will work in association with the University’s STEP (“Solve, Tinker, Explore, Play) Lab 67

perspectives We are driven, motivated, and passionate. We are also deeply reflective, curious, and thoughtful. We asked Fellows and Faculty Champions to share their thoughts on what keeps them up at night, and what keeps them going during the day.

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A FACULTY-LED MOVEMENT INSPIRED BY STUDENTS How a small community of UIF mentors are disrupting higher education

by Ilya Avdeev, Associate Professor of Mechanical Engineering, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee Mary Raber, Chair of the Department of Engineering Fundamentals, Michigan Technological University Miriam Iliohan, Co-founder and Manager of DesignLab, University of Twente Nick Swayne, Founding Director of JMU X-Labs, James Madison University Faculty Innovation Fellows program community leaders

Making a difference in higher education is much more fun than one might think. It is about giving and receiving empathy from your community, students and colleagues. It is about showing that you can work together and make bold moves if we trust one another to find the connections.

Our work with students has emboldened us to think about creating our own movement. We all experienced the enthusiasm of our University Innovation Fellows who brought this experience back to our campuses and immediately leapt into action to bring about positive change. This led us to wonder:

“How might we bring this same sense of empowerment and engagement to our faculty and staff?”

“What if faculty and staff were introduced to the same tool sets and mindsets of innovative change?”

“What if faculty and staff were also part of a community of practice where wild ideas are encouraged, experimentation is the norm, and sharing of diverse perspectives is valued?”

Building forward from the successful studentfocused UIF program to create a similar program for faculty and staff provided the opportunity for us to explore these and other questions. At our schools, this approach has taken hold and is helping to transform our culture into one that emphasizes collaboration across disciplinary boundaries, the mindsets and tools of design, and innovating to transform the educational experience.

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Back when we were new Faculty Champions, during one of our first UIF Silicon Valley Meetups, leaders from Google’s Project Aristotle presented their work on building team effectiveness and system change at Google. We were asked to consider: what is the core element of strong teams and effective system change?

The answer was psychological safety.

As long-time Faculty Champions, supporting the UIF experience as it unfolded for our students, we felt the distinct lack of such physiological safety amongst faculty and staff at our schools. Faculty would certainly have a role in being the institutional memory for our UIF projects, but we didn’t have the same support structures we were providing for students.

The five of us (the authors plus Katherine Christopher of Grand Valley State University) began meeting regularly, sharing ideas about what was working, how to support each other and how to help faculty at other institutions. Over time, this team solidified into what we called the Fab5. The Fab5 provided a virtual place to recharge and talk, share new ideas, a means of testing concepts and prototypes, but most importantly, it provided the psychological sounding board we needed to build our own movement.

As a group, we felt a growing pull to support new faculty as they started innovation movements on their campuses. For many faculty, this is a lonely journey.

We thought, what if we connect these “nomads” and fuel their passions for change by the energy of the UIF student movement? We tried several technical solutions, added events to in-person meetups, and tested several prototypes of online programs.

It wasn’t until a UIF Meetup in Salzburg in 2019 that the idea to create a program for faculty solidified.

From left: Ilya Avdeev, Mary Raber, Nick Swayne, Miriam Iliohan and Katherine Christopher. Photo courtesy of Miriam Iliohan

There, at one point during the week, a group of Faculty Champions sat in a castle on a mountain top, sharing a personal moment of why we joined this movement.

Each story being unique of its kind, we took the time to listen. Time to really listen and reflect on what the other Faculty Champion was telling about their journey of becoming an empowerer of change. The community feeling of empathy grew throughout the day, with hugging, inspiration walks along the river or city excursions just to talk a bit further about what makes us tick.

As a result, we worked with UIF co-director Humera Fasihuddin to launch the Faculty Innovation Fellows Program. Knowing there are others “out there,” having a judgment-free place to share, getting support and encouragement from respected team members has been transformative in so many ways.

The Faculty Innovation Fellows Program is now a two-year experience for Fellows’ Faculty Champions that helps them expand the innovation and entrepreneurship (I&E) movement at their schools. Much like the student Fellows program, the Faculty Innovation Fellows candidates design ways to improve their institutions. They connect with a community of like-minded educators from around the world to advance projects, gather feedback, and share what they learn.

There are currently 18 candidates in the program, whose projects you’ll read about on the subsequent pages. We are a year into the program, and the more we learn, the more we want to explore.

Whose job is to reinvent higher ed? Administration?

Students? Faculty? These are uncharted waters for most Faculty Innovation Fellows candidates. Where does what we do here fit? Research, teaching, service?

Something else? We are collectively trying to figure this

out. We are not expected to spend our time reimagining higher ed by our administration, by our executive committees or even by our peers. And yet, we do. Because we can. Because we have to.

Faculty Champions from around the world share similar questions: How do I demonstrate to my Dean that UIF can be scaled? How do I incentivize other faculty to join me? How do we make sure that our students take credit for their work (both academically and non-academically)? How do we make others understand our work?

This prototype has already proven that a community of practice is stronger and more creative than the sum of its parts. We can now point to a “portfolio” of pilot projects yielding real gains for students, faculty and campuses around the globe. More importantly, we have created a small (as of now) community of practice.

At our schools, we sometimes look for that explosion of energy that we give on a daily basis, with a warm cup of coffee, to students and staff to empower in their work, and to go beyond. To not see the barriers that the institution can give, but which insights we can give the institution to make change.

Eighteen months ago, a team of faculty set out to pull together like-minded people in an effort to innovate higher education. Completing their first year of work, the team has realized significant progress. We’re just getting started, but the movement has momentum and the combined energy of the founding faculty. Change in higher ed seems impossible, but it doesn’t have to be, and the Faculty Innovation Fellows are leading the way.

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YOU DON’T HAVE TO BE “A CREATIVE” TO THINK CREATIVELY It IS a good idea to seek opportunities that excite you (even if you feel unqualified)

By Brittany Gesell Fordham University University Innovation Fellow A few years ago, if someone asked what I wanted to do when I finished school, I would have said, “Well, I think I could do anything really…except be an entrepreneur.”

I have always wanted to impact the world, but I have also been aware of what I thought was one of my most significant flaws – a lack of creativity. Because of this, I spent years struggling in any context where I had to develop original ideas. I am a facts-oriented person, and though the traits are not always aligned, for me, this created a lack of imagination.

When I heard about UIF’s call for innovation on college campuses, my initial reaction was that I would be a bad fit. My associations with words like “innovation” and “changemaking” were confined to tech entrepreneurs and disease-curing scientists. The thought of trying to class myself with such intelligent people terrified me; innovators were people I deeply respected, but they represented a group I thought I could never join.

My perspective changed when I did my first design thinking workshop, presented by a previous group of Fellows to a class I was taking. The method of deferred judgment and the stages of flaring and focusing transformed my conception of what it meant to brainstorm and made innovating seem far more accessible. Where I had previously thought I was not creative enough to brainstorm and develop an idea within an hour, through the process of design thinking I was able to break down these mental barriers and not just come up with an idea, but create something that I was excited about.

Fresh off of my first successful design thinking experience, I decided to apply to UIF. I was drawn in by the idea that I could grow a skillset that I did not have yet and that this could open new doors for me to combat problems I had previously thought were too complicated to solve.

After joining my UIF cohort, pretty much every assignment required me to move out of my comfort zone.

Being naturally shy, I was intimidated by connecting with new people at my school for each stage of training.

Having very little experience innovating, I was scared to take ownership of my ideas, and I continually asked myself why I was chosen if I was so unqualified.

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However, as time went on, I could feel that I was developing a new skill set, and throughout the experience, I became less afraid of problem-solving. Where in the past I had been too overwhelmed to start brainstorming, UIF gave me a framework to methodically confront relevant issues — appealing to my logical, facts-focused nature. The more iterations we went through, the more confident I became in my abilities, and by the time my team had a fleshed-out idea, I was at ease designing solutions and interacting with collaborators.

As I explored the wide variety of contexts where I could apply design thinking strategies, it became clear that while data is essential, focusing only on data is restrictive – it is necessary to interpret the causes and effects shaping a challenge. Often, things are not as they appear, and UIF has helped me open my mind and see new possibilities in my experiences on campus.

A critical part of this was shifting my perspective on what it means to be a university student. Working with UIF has shown me that students are not four-year visitors on their campuses; we are agents of change.

Not just exceptionally creative students, but all students. This powerful fact reminds me to pay close attention to my surroundings and seek opportunities for improvement. It also led me to take action by presenting design thinking workshops at my school and starting a podcast that showcases innovative students on our campus – both projects that center around keeping my fellow students from feeling the fear of changemaking I once faced.

The most impactful lesson I have learned is that students are powerful no matter what. We can harness this power by stepping out of our comfort zones, joining programs that may seem scary, learning new things, and refusing to accept the conditions of our learning experience as unchangeable.

Note: Our podcast is called Gabelli School Innovators’ Podcast and it can be found on Spotify at bit.ly/gabelli-podcast!

Also available on other platforms through Anchor: anchor.fm/gabellischoolinnovators

ENTREPRENEURIAL PASSION A slowly smoldering fire?

By Malte Krohn PhD Student in Innovation, Hamburg University of Technology Faculty Innovation Fellows Candidate Without a doubt, entrepreneurial passion can truly move mountains and we will need a lot of it to solve our many societal challenges. And don’t get me wrong!

I believe that this world needs change makers more than ever. I recently looked at the photo of a Friday’s for Future demo and a young activists sign said:

“You will die of old age, I’ll die of climate change.”

Surely, this is one of the more pressing issues and you might want to have a look at the UN’s 17 Sustainable Development Goals to find some more “inspiration.”

Personally, I am more than skeptical that the corporations, which in many cases got us into this mess, will manage to get us out of it…. Our society always relied on creative destroyers. On entrepreneurs who blend creativity and resources with grit to tackle pressing issues and eagerly direct ubiquitous change into more desirable directions. Yet, as with many things in life, there is a catch, a dark side. Do we really ignite our protégés or do we set them on a secretly smoldering fire? In this article, I want to take you on a journey to the dark side of entrepreneurial passion and how we can kindly meet it with mindfulness and compassion.

Are you with me?

THE DOUBLE EDGED SWORD OF ENTREPRENEURIAL PASSION Since our society needs passionate and dedicated change makers, university ecosystems are trusted with an important task. As teachers, trainers, mentors and ecosystem builders, we need to ignite the spark of students’ entrepreneurial mindset. We have to hone their willingness as well as ability to see challenges as opportunities and own them with curiosity, creativity 1 2 3

and confidence. However, there is something I would like to have an honest discussion about. In a recent conversation with my friend Rogelio Arellano, who is an entrepreneur and two times Forbes 30 under 30 alum himself, he suggested that starting up is rather a marathon than a sprint1. Quite a tiring one for that matter. Something that many aspiring entrepreneurs underestimate or don’t think about at all. So did Rogelio, by the way. He ended up suffering from sleep deprivation, bad eating habits and missing his brother’s wedding. Unfortunately, Rogelio is not the only entrepreneur with such an experience.

Indeed, there is a dark side of entrepreneurial passion and too much of it can even result in entrepreneurial burnout2. Recent research also suggests that entrepreneurs are frequently challenged with various mental health issues. Michael A. Freeman of the University of California San Francisco and several colleagues from Stanford, Berkeley and Columbia University conducted a study among 242 entrepreneurs and 93 comparison participants in the U.S. The study finds that during their lifetime3: • Twice as many entrepreneurs report having depression • Six times as many entrepreneurs report Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) • Three times as many entrepreneurs report substance abuse • Eleven times as many entrepreneurs report bipolar disorder Furthermore, 49% of entrepreneurs in the study report having a mental health condition during their lives, so far, 32% report having two or more mental health conditions and 18% report having three or more

Krohn, M. (2020) ALL THAT GLITTERS IS NOT GOLD… INTERVIEW ON ENTREPRENEURIAL WELL-BEING WITH ROGELIO ARELLANO, CTO AT CITRUSLABS AND FORBES 30 UNDER 30 ALUM. Retrieved 2 28, 2021, from On Minds & Motion: https://www.onmindsandmotion.com/blog/entrepreneurial-well-being De Mol, E., Ho, V. T., & Pollack, J. M. (2018). Predicting entrepreneurial burnout in a moderated mediated model of job fit. Journal of Small Business Management, 56(3), 392-411.

Freeman, M. A., Staudenmaier, P. J., Zisser, M. R., & Andresen, L. A. (2019). The prevalence and co-occurrence of psychiatric conditions among entrepreneurs and their families. Small Business Economics, 53(2), 323-342.

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Credit Anna-Lena Krohn and Malte Krohn

mental health conditions. The study makes no judgment about possible causalities, but the results indicate that personal predispositions of entrepreneurs, stress, anxiety, isolation and specific entrepreneurial challenges might take a big mental toll. It must be said that a single study doesn’t show the complete picture, and research on entrepreneurial well-being is rather in its infancy. Being an entrepreneur has many upsides, too.

However, the study shows that the matter needs to be taken very seriously!

Sorry if I put you down with these rather daunting figures, but there is also very promising news. Another stream of research and practice is emerging and I believe it is just what we needed!

INHALE THE PRESENT. EXHALE THE FUTURE. Sure, entrepreneurs have to plan for and envision the future and they are bound to strive towards their goals.

Nevertheless, whatever impact they want to make on the future, they have to act from the present moment.

You might have guessed it already. This is where mindfulness and compassion come into play.

There is now a lot of scientific evidence that mindfulness and compassion, which can be trained and cultivated by practicing meditation, have tremendous positive effects on human functioning in workplace settings4 and emerging evidence for entrepreneurial settings5.

Mindfulness can be thought of as a non-judgmental

4 5

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orientation to present moment experiences and events.

It sounds very simple, but takes a lot of dedicated practice to be sustained in challenging situations. Yet, exactly that ability is required to avoid getting lost in constant worrying or mind wandering, which often results in detrimental effects on mental health! Hence, cultivating self-awareness, the ability of skillfully refocusing one’s attention and combining it with the wholehearted qualities of compassion bears huge potential to navigate the entrepreneurial journey more self-sustainably.

Driven by over two decades of personal practice in Eastern martial arts, Yoga and meditation, I set out to shed light on this powerful synergy of Entrepreneurial Mindfulness. I took part in an 8-week Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction training, talked to experts from all over the world and reviewed scientific work from business, psychology, neuroscience and meditation studies. Currently, I am in the process of synthesizing these insights in my upcoming book “The Mindful Startup.” I believe that a first step of advocating a more mindful and compassionate approach to driving change is creating more awareness of the challenges discussed in this article. I hope that my book will enable many more to join the conversation and empower change makers to take their whole selves on the entrepreneurial journey.

However, cultivating mindfulness and compassion requires dedicated practice and support from skilled mentors. I hope that in the future, university ecosystems

Good, D. J., Lyddy, C. J., Glomb, T. M., Bono, J. E., Brown, K. W., Duffy, M. K., . . . Lazar, S. W. (2016). Contemplating mindfulness at work: An integrative review. Journal of management, 42(1), 114-142.

Engel, Y., Noordijk, S., Spoelder, A., & van Gelderen, M. (2019). Self-compassion when coping with venture obstacles: loving-kindness meditation and entrepreneurial fear of failure. Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, 1-27.

Credit Anna-Lena Krohn and Malte Krohn

will not only empower young students to drive change, but teach them to get aware of and appreciate their individual capacity of doing so. In my version of the future, we will train change makers to develop entrepreneurial survival skills, such as self-awareness, emotional intelligence and taking self-responsibility just as we ignite their entrepreneurial mindset. So they can tame their inner fire before it sets them on fire.

A NEW JOURNEY I hope that this brief journey to the dark side of entrepreneurial passion is only the beginning of a more nurturing journey towards Entrepreneurial Mindfulness. Change makers often pay a high price with regards to their emotional, physical and social well-being.

Research and practice shows that a more mindful and compassionate approach to entrepreneurship is a promising avenue to balance this pressing issue. Yet, we need much more of it! I call for all trainers, teachers, coaches and ecosystem builders to advocate a more mindful and compassionate approach to entrepreneurial education and training! Let’s meet passion with compassion, striving for a better future while staying mindful of our present moment and make Entrepreneurial Mindfulness a thing!

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ITERATIVE MINDSET Finding happiness in a constantly changing job market

By Mae White IE University University Innovation Fellow Four days ago, I came to my mom half in tears feeling defeated. I complained to her that as I prepare to graduate, I didn’t even know if I liked visual design enough to keep doing it as a job. I believed happiness could only be achieved when I reached a certain professional level, and I wasn’t going to get there if I didn’t land the perfect job. In hindsight, my hopeless outlook stopped me from jumping on opportunities that were not an exact match for my career, but were available at least. It made me wonder if this attitude was preventable. Was there a way to feel more capable of tackling problems by changing our expectations?

This brings us to the essence of design thinking.

There are various phases of iteration, trial and error, and starting over, that I’ve ignored when it comes to my career. In order to better utilize design methodology in our lives, we must view our own careers as a problem solving process. By embracing this iterative nature, we can shift our mindset to one that is not only resilient to, but expects constant change.

The double diamond method is a tactic to create a solution by gathering information from stakeholders, users, and their environment to arrive at an outcome best suited for them. The original idea hardly stays the same after going through this process. This can be applied to our career journeys as well.

The discovery phase is all about finding out which problems we care to solve. At this stage, we need to decide which values we want to let dictate our lives; is it money? Is it a passion? Can we fuse the two? What does society need right now that I can provide? We may find the focus shift away from ourselves and instead the problems we find most urgent. As we learn more about the world around us, the “how might we” questions start popping up. Can we join companies that are asking the same questions?

The second step is narrowing down these experiences to a niche that works best for you, and is provided by a greater need from the community. Though it’s no easy feat, define which mission you want to dedicate ample time to (it doesn’t have to be just one! It may also change 76

Credit Mae White

later). Finding the answer to this question can give us more confidence to start the “prototyping” phase.

Rapid prototyping is where we try new jobs/projects constantly and when they don’t work out, we should ask ourselves “Why?”. What did our superiors tell us? What mistakes can we avoid making in the future? Maybe there are new things we didn’t know we wanted to pursue further! In dead end situations, pivoting is definitely an option.

Finally, when we find that our efforts are slowly making a dent in the problems we try to solve, it means we’ve arrived at our solution. This doesn’t mean to stop! Maybe we start something new, or inspire others who want to create the same changes you have to work alongside you.

The main takeaway is that we will feel defeated if we create a plan or idea of how our careers ought to be. Design thinking is all about being flexible and willing to pivot when an opportunity presents itself or our environment changes. Happiness can be attained throughout our design process; it’s not waiting for us at the end. Deciding to have an optimistic outlook on our circumstances, knowing that the road ahead will not be a smooth one, can make all the difference in motivating ourselves to move on to the next step. So, where will your design journey take you?

THERE IS NO ONE WHO CAN DO WHAT YOU DO A simple way of finally getting to know how special and necessary you are in this world.

By María Josefina Martinez Calero Universidad Católica del Uruguay University Innovation Fellow As a student or a professional, you surely went through a normal but difficult decision: choosing what you want to spend the rest of your life doing. Unfortunately, you were probably also pressured to do this at a young age and convinced that you could not continue discovering and choosing your path later in life. If this was your case (or you still think this is how things work) I recommend you to keep reading because the world needs you to do things that only you can do, and this doesn’t depend on the major you choose.

When I entered university, I had this feeling that my major would limit who I could be instead of complimenting me, and other students around me frequently felt the same. Thankfully, experiences I went through in college during the last three years led me to see life with new eyes and inspired me to approach my life in a different way.

I’m an ordinary electronic engineering student, and the only reason I decided to study this major is because I want to invent things and I am good at maths (sounds quite banal right?). At the same time, I feel distinguished by my Vitiligo, and I enjoy coming along with other people with the same skin condition, which determines our skin to have two different colors throughout the body. Apart from that, last year I resolved to raise a puppy to become a future guide dog. Being the first person on my campus to this was challenging as I had to deal with many permissions. Just for you to imagine what the experience looks like, I had to go every day to the university (and every other place I visited) with a puppy from when it was 4-months old until it turned into an adult (which included cleaning her poop at campus). This was a fulfilling experience which introduced me to many blind people and families with children with autism. It exposed me to an unseen reality which I wanted to contribute to.

Studying engineering, building a Vitiligo community, training a guide dog — three experiences, no connection. Or… maybe yes; they were all enjoyable activities for me and I undertook them for curiosity. That was all I needed to discover something that motivates me: a hidden passion to devote my career to medical technology

for unpopular/left-out pathologies, an area which I never thought I could like. Unintentionally, while I followed my eagerness, I found a way of combining all those interests which are giving meaning to my life. What’s most interesting about this finding is the perspective from which I can contribute to society: a unique one.

The importance of learning technical skills is real, but the skills earned when we develop our passions and curiosity are unrepeatable from one person to another.

This is why I believe being entrepreneurs (not the typical entrepreneurs) is the pathway that gives meaning to our lives, not our majors.

Entrepreneurship is generally associated with businesses, but there is another side to the coin. To me, being an entrepreneur means to have the initiative to carry out actions that are difficult, innovative and ambitious. Is to be curious and determined. It doesn’t mean to be fearless, it means to be adventurous. This mindset helps expose us to a combination of unique experiences that we go through in life. This transforms each of us into fundamentally unique people who serve unique roles in society, as we are the only ones capable of connecting our talents and interests with impact.

I believe the most striking lives are empowered by passion and underpinned by technical skills. The seed of passion is inside us, but we need to nurture it to discover how it looks, to make it grow and become stronger.

And there is no simpler way to do it than trying new things, learning more about what we already know and getting out of our comfort zone. We must never stop discovering and transforming our souls.

It’s essential to remember to keep pushing ourselves to keep doing those things which make us curious and inspired. And last but not least, we must never forget to keep trying new things, because this can take us to some unknown but amazing road. Just do whatever intrigues you. The experiences will speak for themselves.

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THE GRADUAL GROWTH OF A CHANGE AGENT How the magic of UIF changed people’s lives

By Marcela C. Yeckle Damian Universidad de Ingeniería y Tecnología University Innovation Fellow All the Fellows I’ve talked to agree when I say we were different people before the UIF program. During the training, we had a great opportunity to learn tools and methodologies that contribute to our I&E mindset and how to apply them to different kinds of projects.

Also, it is important to say that becoming a Fellow involves more than one person. I considered the Faculty Champion, our UIGuides, and the headmasters of the program as the main support of who we are now. I felt this experience was a gradual growth of a future change agent.

“Nothing can push you away from what is meant for you” was an excellent quote I saw when I was doing the application for the UIF program. At this particular moment, I was really insecure. Even though I knew all my abilities and had lots of projects in mind, I didn’t have the braveness of making it real. Nevertheless, getting accepted was the first part of all my development as a person.

During the first week of training, I could clearly identify my “why” — giving the students innovative tools to improve their university experience — and put so much effort into my projects and objectives. Moreover, I got inspired by all my college teammates’ inspirations, telling their histories and future projections. Since that day, I knew I made the right decision.

Three weeks later, after explaining the ways my school was creating virtual communities for students, one of my colleagues told me to check the review of the first training session. When I saw it, I just wanted to say: “Mom, I’m on the cover page.” The program leaders featured all the activities I had been doing as the spokeswoman of my major during the pandemic.

It was the first time I realized the activities I had been involved in the past had really a big impact on many people. Even though I was facing challenges like the appearance of COVID-19, being really far from home (this is another story), and experiencing some sentimental issues, I was able to handle it and push myself to do things that improve the environment in which I lived.

Day by day I was falling in love with the program.

The Design Thinking session gave me the opportunity to innovate based on developing empathy for people in 78

my surroundings. Also, the Landscape Canvas session made me realize the necessity of making projects at my school related to makerspaces, technology and industrial spaces, and more academic activities focused on spreading the concept of I&E to students.

As a result, I decided to create an innovative space to let people express their ideas. The next few days would be the initial part of a great adventure. One week later, I put my hands on work, and I have never done so many interviews. I pushed my boundaries to make a good project, and the final result was better than I expected.

I had met the objective of doing a collaborative project related to my major, I was aware the “Explore Room” (now “Design Lab”) will benefit hundreds of people in my university.

When we presented our efforts at the stakeholder meeting, in the ultimate seconds of our speech, I felt all my cohort’s nerves. The positive and supportive comments of every administrator made me almost cry.

They decided to support us, and THAT was the point where I understood I had underestimated myself the whole time.

This program pushed away all my fears and doubts, and motivated me to inspire others and participate in new international experiences. I was able to think far away from my frontiers and use this knowledge to contribute to the benefit of my country. I applied these methodologies to design quality infrastructure for people who need it the most. The last thing I can say is don’t mistrust your abilities, push away all the fears — the best is yet to come.

THE HIDDEN VIEW OF ENGINEERING How innovation can shape your way of viewing your surroundings

By Mirella Rivas Universidad de Ingeniería y Tecnología University Innovation Fellow

“As engineers, we were going to be in a position to change the world – not just study it.”

—Henry Petroski When I started my major, I didn’t think of myself as an innovative or entrepreneurial person. If you ever had asked me back then, I may have not been able to connect these topics to my engineering career. I probably would have told you I thought they were for business related jobs. I know, right? It was kind of crazy for me to think that back then, but then again this concept was brought to the table so many times that I started to dig into it a little more. It’s a step I regret not doing back at the beginning.

During my first years of university I got involved in great experiences in innovation and entrepreneurship (I&E), in different programs, classes, etc. I gained more knowledge and loved the process of creating. The only thing that persisted in my mind was that I couldn’t think of I&E as more than startups and relate it into my own major and daily life environment.

As I started to get involved in more projects, I later understood that I&E was something that could be in the mix with engineering, but I couldn’t pinpoint it’s exact role. My wake up call was at a team meeting while in the UIF program, when discussing how our proposed projects complemented one another. Shaping the identity of the in I&E in our school, by helping students put into practice the basic toolkits, as well as teaching them the process to escalate projects. But while talking, it was when I realized that I wasn’t using or understanding the whole concept of I&E correctly, thinking it more for just business like ideas, when the whole idea of I&E is bring ideas to life, which can be used in a lot of areas of engineering work and it is truly in the mix with what we do.

necessities of a user you want to help, as well as to ideate possible solutions, create a prototype with the materials we have at hand, test it and iterate it. Knowing this now, I am also applying these methodologies with my investigation team while developing a robot!

With all the evolving and development we are having in all areas, we must be prepared to find new approaches to challenges, get out of the traditional path and find solutions. So when we had the opportunity to write something that we grew passionate about, I couldn’t stop thinking about this. I would like to encourage more engineering students like me and my fellow UIF teammates, to get involved when there is a problem you see and would really want to solve it. Do not stand by it; take a risk and try looking for the root of the problem.

It can be something we could see in our daily life. Try new ideas, listen to the people involved in this problem and don’t be afraid of a “no’s” for an answer. Actually, a “no” could lead to an idea to iterate, develop and evolve into a better solution (trust me, it happens a lot). All this process will shape our engineering path, make us find our core and be a better professional.

I am thankful for having the opportunity to do this major, having found problems I really want to solve and doing the things I love. I want this to be my engineering path, what about yours?

We, as engineers, are continuously looking for solutions aimed to solve problems around us, and as inventors, engaging, understanding and brainstorming different approaches to solve them is in our blood. We might as well use I&E for starting a project, learn the 79

“NO” IS THE NEW “YES” FOR CHANGEMAKERS A letter from Caro to the world

By Carolina Vassallucci Universidad de Montevideo University Innovation Fellow University of Montevideo Prudencio de Pena 2544, 11600 Montevideo, Uruguay To every corner of the planet Dear world, It is February 2021 and I cannot believe the changes our lives have gone through in the last couple of months.

Our routine has become the new “normal” and our previous normality seems now so far away. So distant, but... so close at the same time. Yes. Close. So close, that I even dare to tell you a secret: we are one change of attitude away from seizing it and its possibilities.

As changemakers, as people passionate about impact, we will find more NOs than YESes in the road to our success: “it cannot happen,” “there is no money,” “it is not a priority.” But, let us think... how many times did these same people tell us “I don’t understand you”? On what occasions did any of these powerful decision-makers take a minute to deep dive into the roots of the challenges we face every day? The answer is: it doesn’t matter, because that is what change agents are for. To convince them, to show them why a “no” is worth much more than a “yes.”

A “no” allows us to dream, allows us to reimagine, and most importantly, allows us to act. It is not so simple at the beginning, since we go through a clear stage of denial, of not understanding why the other person does not comprehend us. That can lead us to anger, but here is the key: this is the moment of true transformation. This is when our creative confidence and desire for impact need to become stronger. Let me illustrate with a very concrete example.

The objective: the 2019 cohort of Fellows from the University of Montevideo had a clear purpose at the end of their program training: to create a space that promotes communication, exchange and collaboration between students and teachers from across the institution.

The “no”: there was no budget at the university to generate additional spaces (the possibility of renting a new location was initially considered), there was no space to carry out expansion work in the central 80

buildings, and there was no team that could take over a project of this style. The answer was “no.”

The “yes”: However, this group of 4 undergraduate students from the Faculty of Business and Economics and Engineering presented a project as simple as it was revolutionary: aesthetically transforming the canteens.

This initiative made it possible to improve the way space is perceived, ceasing to be a simple place where students and teachers ate separately and in a hurry because there was no added value in the space. Now, with lots of empathy and investigation, it was possible to create a true meeting space, capable of adapting to the needs of a university that lacks study space, but also communication between students of different disciplines and professors who seem to be distant.

This simple framework (objective / no -> yes) is what in short has allowed every changemaker to achieve our goals, even if we don’t know it. Despite the difficulties we face, it helps us find a way to convince and impact first the “no” of the decision-makers.

So world, from wherever you are reading this, regardless of the date, I want to tell you that if you have not lived it yet, bravo. You still have time to face as many NOs as YESes. You can always transform obstacles into real changes that can become your new normal.

Hugs, Me P.S.: These are more NOs that the Fellows of the University of Montevideo transformed into YESes in the last 4 years: • LOOP, the Innovation Week: the first Latin American Meetup and massive event fully co-organized by university students from all over the country • d.challenge workshops (Design Thinking training for more than 200 people from the university’s ecosystem) • Promote the installation of a recycling program in all university headquarters • Mentoring program for UIF applicants by Fellows • Facilitation of Life Design workshops for high school students across Uruguay (initiative that also involved students who were not Fellows)

DARING TO DREAM BIGGER Acknowledging your limiting beliefs

By Maria Romina Dominzain de Leon Universidad de Montevideo University Innovation Fellow and Faculty Champion I know you dream big. You want to change your school, your community and the world… Let’s start with a quick warm up.

If you are reading this sitting down, stand up. If you are standing, stay like this. You are going to follow these steps:

1. Look ahead and point there with your hand (whichever you want).

2. Twist your torso around as much as you can without moving your legs.

3. Remember where you arrived, and the last point or object you saw.

4. Now close your eyes, and, without moving, repeat the previous sequence in your imagination. Remember where you arrived, and the last point or object you “saw.”

5. Now repeat the sequence, moving, with your eyes closed.

6. Finally, you’re going to do the same, now with your eyes open.

How far did you get this time? It is highly likely that you have advanced more than the first time you did it.

This little exercise is a fun way to show that we take ourselves as far as we think we can go.

Repeatedly I heard quotes like “believe in yourself,” “trust yourself,” and “you can do it.” I think I am still in the process of truly understanding what that means.

I firmly believe that true learning is not about getting to know new things but about remembering things we already know. Going deeper and understanding them in a profound and applicable way to ourselves.

Trusting yourself is an old and good advice. But, if you don’t know yourself, can you believe and trust in someone you don’t know?

Let’s add some perspective. I don’t want to stand in extremes like “I really know myself” or “I don’t know myself at all.” What I believe is that we can always know ourselves more and choose intentionally to be

on a journey of self discovery. Knowing yourself better can lead to growing your confidence, which lets you go further, just like in the warm up we did at the beginning.

But don’t wait until you completely know yourself to trust yourself. Actually, can you completely know yourself? How do you know that you are advancing? It’s not a linear step process.

Choosing intentionally to get to know myself has released an inner power I didn’t know I had. For example, I realized that procrastinating was something that was more related to my difficulty to resist emotional temptations and not being okay with being uncomfortable facing the white page. I used to control “the doing,” trying to acquire time management skills to avoid procrastination but it was when I focused more on my emotional side that I could manage my actions better.

I recently discovered that I have a big tendency to look for answers outside of me. I’m a big fan of personality tests. I like to Google everything, from random questions that pop up in my head in the middle of the day, quotes and insights for work to metaphysical self doubts. I ask for advice from other people, and enjoy reading self developing books to answer my questions.

Sometimes I do all this stuff without asking myself first. There are some answers that can’t be found outside of me. Why do I procrastinate what I want to do?

What do I actually want for myself? Who do I want to be? Who am I? COVID-19 gave me the opportunity to have more time with myself. I experienced many things, some of them new and others familiar but in a new way. I highlight meditation and journaling as two ways to get to know more of myself and look for answers inside me.

Being still for ten minutes every day showed me that my mind is mostly in the future. I love making plans, thinking about starting new things and listing what I want and have to do. Guided meditations helped me to notice my thoughts and see them with compassion.

That gave me the power to come back to my breath and thank myself for coming back instead of blaming me for getting distracted.

Journaling helped me to get out my thoughts and emotions. Writing about my daily mundane experiences is so liberating and gives me energy to focus on what 81

The author dancing at the UIF Silicon Valley Meetup, credit Patrick Beaudouin

I want. When I find myself blocked in a feeling or a memory I write about it. I acknowledged more parts of me, some of them which I don’t like. But as psychiatrist Carl Jung said, I would rather be whole (with all my parts) than good (with only the parts I like).

Combining meditation and journaling with coaching helped me notice patterns and discover some mental self limiting beliefs and behaviors I have. These limits are preventing me from getting where I want to. Instead of fighting them I am accepting and acknowledging them, observing, feeling and writing them in order to then gently invite them to leave me.

For example, during the UIF Write Now event (where many of us began the articles in this journal) I found myself comparing myself to other Fellows in terms of the number of words written in a warm up exercise. I know, stupid, right? I am 27, I teach at the University, I have been a Fellow since 2017 and I am still comparing myself… Ridiculous! But it is the truth! I guess self loathing habits don’t know about age or work experience. Nowadays I am grateful to ‘just’ be aware of them.

Maybe ‘just’ is a lot for me right now.

I don’t intentionally choose to compare myself to others. It’s something I inherited from my upbringing.

I don’t choose to have certain self limiting beliefs and habits, it’s something I got from the outside so I won’t blame myself for it. Where I am is conditioned by external causes but does not determine me and I can change it.

UIF showed me people who twisted their torso 359° and gave me tools to twist more. UIF gave me a voice when I thought I couldn’t even bend and empowered me to twist in my own way and authentically. I am writing this because it helps me to grow and I hope it 82

helps you too because I discovered that my purpose is to resignify my challenges into inspiration for others.

So it’s not enough to dare to “dream big” in order to dream big. We have to see what isn’t allowing us to dream as big as we could because we don’t know what we don’t dare to dream. Seeing the limits is a big step in order to break them and in order to achieve our dreams. I realized that limits come in different ways, not always in a negative one.

In my journey of seeing and accepting my limits, I felt that when I acknowledged them without resisting, some of them faded or at least didn’t bother me. And when the limit disappeared, I realized that the dream that I had was no longer mine but from a more limited version of me. That gave me space to release and find a more true dream to my actual self and dream bigger than I ever imagined before.

UIF inspired me to dream bigger and trust in myself.

I could have never imagined to be at Stanford among amazing students from all over the world. I thought that it was The dream, that I couldn’t ask for more. But guess what, years passed and life showed me that it was just the start, and a lot of great dreams came true. That was only when I dared to dream bigger acknowledging that I wasn’t dreaming big enough. Focus on the inside and everything else follows.

A GUIDE TO SHARING YOUR WORK How to use design thinking to market your projects and increase their impact

By Jeni Weber University of Alabama at Birmingham University Innovation Fellow

There’s a key element we often forget after we finish our projects: sharing them.

We think, “If we build it, they will come.” But what do we do if we build something and no one comes? How do we know that it’s getting out there to the people it’s supposed to benefit?

Sharing your work: • Extends its life • Increases its impact • Creates relationships that wouldn’t exist otherwise

Keep in mind that your new audience may not be the same people you designed the project for. They could be stakeholders, industry leaders, or people like you who want to learn how to do what you did.

Ask yourself the following:

Who am I trying to reach?

What are their pain points and problems?

How and where do they spend their time?

What you identify as your “work” is up to you. It could be a campus project or initiative, a startup, or something less concrete, like your ideas about the world. Whatever your work is, you can start sharing it with others through marketing.

This process helps you understand the people you’re trying to reach, and the mediums with which to reach them. The internet is a treasure trove of this information. The trick is to join these communities yourself, and listen.

But hang on. Does “marketing” bring to mind a pushy salesperson, annoying ads, or inauthenticity?

Let’s redefine that word and reframe how we view it.

Marketing is building connections and helping people find what they need.

IDEATE

Here’s a secret: You’re already an expert at the marketing process. Let’s hack marketing with something you may already know about, design thinking.

EMPATHIZE & DEFINE THE PROBLEM The first step in sharing your work is to empathize with who you’re trying to reach and the problems they face. Sound familiar? You might have done this as the first step in your project already. But now, you’re looking at your audience through a new lens.

Grab your Post-It notes; it’s time to ideate!

Before you come up with ideas, know that sharing and marketing your work is not self-promotion. You won’t be sharing your work in a single-sided, “look at me!” way. You’re a connector, a node connecting people and ideas. Sharing your work is an opportunity to connect with real humans and provide them with value.

And the stories you tell about your work affect how people feel about your work and resonate with it.

How can you connect with the people you’d like to reach? Do they need some information that you can help them with? Are they looking for entertainment?

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Fellows record a video to share their work at the UIF Silicon Valley Meetup, credit Patrick Beaudouin

Would someone on a similar journey appreciate learning from what you faced on yours?

IMPLEMENT & REPEAT

Your ideas should fill the gap between what your audience needs, where they spend time, and how you can help.

You should continue this cycle as often as you need to. Keep providing value and building connections with others through the stories you tell. Feeling stuck? Go back to empathy and ideation.

If you feel stuck, assess your strengths and interests.

Are you good at communicating through writing?

Design? Speaking? Dance videos? You don’t have to work alone. You can crowdsource support and enjoy the diversity of ideas, skills, and experiences that others bring to the table.

PROTOTYPE & TEST Once you’ve ideated, it’s time to take your ideas and try them out.

Form low-res prototypes of your ideas at first. For example, instead of producing an hour-long, professional podcast, try recording 10 minutes on your phone in an app like Anchor.

If you’re sharing your work through the internet, you can think of everything as feedback. Comments, site traffic, and social media interactions can all hint at whether your test is resonating with people, or if it’s being ignored.

Take that feedback, and iterate. If one method goes well, why? Did it teach or entertain? And if a test doesn’t land well, pivot to something else. You won’t know until you try it!

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Whatever you do, know that you’re benefiting people who truly want to hear what you have to say. Increase your impact by sharing your work. You already have all you need to start.

NAVIGATING HIGHER EDUCATION USING COMPLEXITY THINKING Intervene rather than solve

By Harrison Kellick University of Technology Sydney University Innovation Fellow Approaching innovation through complexity thinking invites innovators to address the interconnected nature of the complex system behind any problem. A significant shortcoming of traditional problem-solving is that proposed solutions are often linear, destined to fail in a system that is naturally non-linear. Complexity thinking, pioneered by Brian Walker, instead promotes intervention in the current state of a system, pushing towards the tipping point of a more desirable state.

The “Ball in a Basin” metaphor illustrates the resiliency of complex systems. In this model, an innovator aims to intervene in order to trigger a disturbance in the system, nudging it towards a more desired state. For this method to be successful, the innovator must have a clear picture of what defines the current state, the desirable state and the tipping point in between. An innovator must also be aware of any alternate undesirable states and prepare for perverse effects of their intervention.

The system of higher education is extremely complex. If an innovator were to propose a solution aiming to improve a student’s performance, most would begin by considering academic results. Complexity thinking instead invites us to explore and understand the connection between further internal and external factors within the higher education system that may contribute to academic success. Through approaching the problem through this lens, we see that the problem space is also influenced by family members, social circles, teachers, mental and emotional health, technology, geography, attitude, and many other factors.

At the University of Technology Sydney (UTS), the University Innovation Fellows are focused on improving engagement with innovation and entrepreneurship (I&E) through increasing awareness and accessibility. My initial strategic priority was a four-step roadmap focused on the early incorporation of I&E in a student’s university life and the subsequent retention of those students. This initial solution attempted to challenge and replace the existing system.

Through applying complexity thinking to my role as a UIF, I was able to place boundaries on the system of higher education and focus on I&E at UTS. I could recognize the enablers, amplifiers and disruptors within the system.

An increased interest in the Future of Work among first year students acted as an amplifier for my project. Many jobs and careers that current university students will

work in don’t exist yet. To combat this, I&E can be used to teach skills that will be applicable across all disciplines.

Academic staff who incorporate I&E into their subjects are a crucial enabler of my project. By introducing these concepts in a student’s first year of university, we hope to integrate I&E into their routine. It is clear through interviews with students and staff that once a routine is in place for university, it is very difficult to change.

Alongside this, transdisciplinary electives have been introduced at UTS in 2021 and are available to all students with elective space. These subjects provide an opportunity to deep dive into problem-solving skills and shed light on the benefits of I&E, including increased employability.

The Innovation Hub (iHub) acted as a disruptor within the system. Introduced by previous UTS UIFs, the iHub promoted a physical, student-led space where any student could bring projects to life. While the COVID-19 pandemic limits the amount of students who can be in this space, I believe there is now an opportunity to revamp the space to showcase successful I&E projects.

The factors allowed me to refine my solution into three intervention points: introducing I&E during orientation, incorporating I&E into first year classes and promoting successful I&E projects. University has taught me to remain in the problem space for as long as possible when working towards a solution. Complexity thinking revealed to me that a solution is useless if you don’t fully understand the system it sits within.

The next time you’re problem solving I implore you to think with complexity by considering the following: • Map out the current system state — what are the internal factors? What are the external factors?

• Place a boundary around your focus within the system. It’s not feasible to solve for everything — and that is to be expected.

• Visualize the desired alternate state, and the undesired. Recognize the tipping points or shifting boundaries for both. Not all systems reach tipping points.

• Explore the effects of a potential intervention.

What other variables within the system does it affect? Did you expect the outcome?

• Test your interventions.

Once you begin to recognize complexity, you won’t stop.

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THE ETHICAL DESIGN OF EMPATHY Why my background in design thinking and empathy has made me a better engineer and educator

By Jessica Aldrich Wichita State University ‘19, Graduate Research Assistant, University of Florida University Innovation Fellow

The first thing that I had students in my classes do when I started teaching Engineering Ethics was to write down their legal name, their preferred name, and their pronouns. An inclusive practice like this isn’t common in traditional engineering courses. I then explained that, yes, this was an engineering class, but this was also ethics. And, in ethics we were going to spend the semester discussing topics that existed in the gray area.

It was in this gray area that we were going to debate our views and have open discussions about differing opinions. But, at the end of the day, each person in that classroom would have a seat at the table where their lived experience mattered.

A younger me wouldn’t have had the confidence to get on a soapbox and make statements about inclusion to students I had never met. As a scientist, I wouldn’t have been comfortable making claims that I hadn’t done the hands-on research for. But, in that classroom, it was my responsibility to prepare these future engineers for the world that existed beyond their education.

I knew that empathy and inclusion were at the root of the decision making models I was about to teach.

Empathy-led design isn’t directly in the content I’m given to lecture on. However, all ethical approaches come down to an individual’s judgment based on their own morals and values. Regardless of what approach we take — for example the net-goodness analysis or a points system for evaluating ethical dilemmas — at the end of the day, our view of empathy is the deciding factor.

As we study ethical dilemmas in engineering, we often return to the engineering design process. This was something that I initially learned as the design thinking process. We define the problem, come up with solutions, test and iterate them, and then put a selected solution into practice. As engineers, if we cut corners 86

in the design process, we end up with disasters like the Challenger or the Deep Water Horizon Oil Spill. We also end up in these disasters when meeting the bottom line becomes more important than following the Code of Ethics, like in the Takata airbag scandal.

It is in reviewing this design process, after discussing a catastrophe, that I ask my students to put themselves in the shoes of those involved. Be it the engineer who made the error, the chief executive who faked reports, or the family member now grieving a loss. Initially, they claim that they would never cut corners for profit, or that they wouldn’t be afraid to be the whistleblower.

But after discussing the thoughts, feelings, and then actions of each party involved, I watched the wheels click into place. My students brought the process full circle back to empathy. They realized there was more to an ethical dilemma than a right or wrong answer, contrary to what is taught in many engineering classes. I chose to end these class discussions with an open ended question: If we design with the health and well being of others in mind from the beginning (which is the first cannon in the Engineering Code of Ethics), would we make decisions that put lives at risk in the first place?

Some days they would quietly pack their things, wipe down their tables, and walk out of class with an air of uncertainty. Other days, they would still be in the room trying to break down how a different outcome could have happened as my students for the next class were coming in. When we humanized the ethical dilemma, it became tangible for them to understand. Especially when they had different opinions on the ‘right’ answer.

It can be easy to see situations as black and white, even when you aren’t trained as an engineer. Unless you are personally in the thick of it, how can you understand everything that goes into making a decision?

The author speaks to Fellows at the 2019 UIF Silicon Valley Meetup, credit Patrick Beaudouin

With major ethical dilemmas, we are often stuck with the facts we get in the news and eventually erudite discussions in documentaries. In both of these instances, we only get to see a few of the variables at play within the dilemma. But neither offer an in-depth understanding of what the humans at the center of a situation were experiencing.

My students were all at different stages in their education and many were only in the class to fulfill a requirement. Deep and lasting connections and conversation weren’t exactly what they had intended to sign up for. But we couldn’t talk about ethics on the surface like how we hear them in the news. As we moved through the semester I watched them jump into these deeper aspects of ethics at the beginning of our discussions. As if it all finally mattered to them on a personal level, and wasn’t just something they had to learn in a class that they had to take.

It can be easy to look around and think that we are inclusive, but often it is our own implicit bias that blinds us to the reality of the spaces we live and work in. By asking my students to share their identity on the first day of class, they began to create a new frame of reference that included variables they didn’t know they were excluding. Just like the variables that get excluded when ethical dilemmas are portrayed in our media. Coupling these small actions with a focus on how empathy and ethics are tied to the design process, I hope I taught a generation of engineers who see the value of others as more important than the value on the bottom line.

When we humanized the dilemma and we gave a voice to those dealing with it, a single right or wrong no longer existed.

But what does this have to do with bringing awareness to the diversity within our classroom? The logical nature of an engineering education is that we perceive challenges and problems only with facts. We often overlook the differences that make people unique or that shape their perspective on the problem. We expect others to have the same boundary conditions, or values, that we do without understanding the bigger picture of their lived experiences.

While at the end of the semester, they may not have made the connection between the first day of class activity and our continual ethical discussions, that act of inclusion set the stage for an authentic educational experience beyond what they were accustomed to.

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index Aditya College of Engineering Aditya Shasank PSKPVS 53

Aditya College of Engineering and Technology La Selene Dommu 30

Boğaziçi University Arda Ulutürk 48 Haluk Ziya Tercan 28, 48 Oğuzhan Aygören 16 Zişan Özdemir 28

Bucknell University Colleen Hull 12 Nicholas DeMarchis 12 Caitlyn Schuette 64 Taylor Graybill 64

Clemson University Kate Tolleson 40 River Sneed 40 Sabrina Manji 40 Terryn Witherspoon 40

Colorado School of Mines Ashley Dunivan 64 Henry Jenkins 40 Indiana Sjahputera 48 Johnny Desrosiers 64 Katherine King 40 Mirna Mattjik 31 Regan Sampson 12

Elon University Alyssa Martina 56 Christina Wyatt 36 Dwight Stucker 36 Jakob Reuter 36 Jane Ragland 36 Margaret Cox 36 Riley Corvin 36 Zoe Rein 36

FH Salzburg Andreas Golser 36 Heiko Lehrer 36 Julia Armstorfer 36 Lionel Aßhauer 36 Rishelle Wimmer 18 Thomas Grundnigg 18

Fordham University Arham Sheikh 40 Benjamin Lukens 40 Bhavesh Patel 40 Brittany Gesell 72 Teodor Parolo Tasevski 40

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Georgia Institute of Technology Cole Campbell 12 Madison Lovelace 12 Tynan Purdy 12 Yuma Tanaka 12

Grand Valley State University Brady Mills 40 Ethan Paras 40 Hannah Cline 40

Hamburg University of Technology David Erler 28, 48 Hannah Meier 28, 48 Jannik Jorge Grothusen 28, 48 Luise Degen 28, 48 Malte Krohn 73

IE University Mae White 76

Illinois Institute of Technology Andrew Guardia 40 Jack Pio 40 Katja Berthold 40 Pranav Nair 40

Iona College Enjay Brown 48 Joanna Falisi 48 Juan Cadile 48 Melissa Juarez 48

Istanbul Technical University Cansu Çevik 28, 48 Selenay Sonay Tufan 28, 41 Selin Yılmaz 12, 28 Serhat Bilge 28, 41

James Madison University Abigail Maltese 41 Cameryn Norris 41 Emily Marsch 41 Lauren Dargan 41 Mark Vakarchuk 41 Nick Swayne 70 Pierre Mbala 41 Robin Lagodka 41

Khalifa University of Science and Technology Alia Alkatheeri 49 Amna Alqahtani 13 Ruba Ayman Nasser 13

Koç University Ahmet Berk Tuzcu 41, 49 İrem Nur Bulut 49, 55 Mehmet Enes Erciyes 49 Pinar Donmez 41, 49

Lingnan University Bliss Xiao Qian Tan 41, 48, 49 Nicholas Ooi 20 Samantha Cheuk Wun Lee 28 Thuy Duong Pham 42, 48

Louisiana Tech University Abigail Hildenbrand 13 Courtney Wessels 13 Jatavion Jackson 13 Kayley Kraig 13

Loyola University Maryland Christina Gambrell 13, 49 Hannah Mannering 13, 49 Meghan Oddy 13, 49 Natalia Medina Lozada 13, 49

Madanapalle Institute of Technology & Science Abdul Sameer Shaik 50 Balaji Ramanujam 22 Likhitha Kurapothula 49 Poojitha Reddy Konkala 29 Puthin Kumar Reddy Thallapalli 49 Sai Sumith Gorla 50 Sasi Supraja Muthakana 29 Vasu Deva Rao BNV 36 Vijaya Lakshmi Udayagiri 22 Vishal Meda 50

Menlo College Basil Merk 13, 29, 37 Courtney Cooper 13, 29, 37 Dez Frazier 13, 29, 37 Esteban Ramirez 13, 29, 37

Michigan Tech Lisa Casper 24 Mary Raber 70 Peter LaMantia 50 Rachel May 50 Rex Green 50

Milwaukee School of Engineering Alexander Wilhelm Holborn 50 Edwina Sofia Paredes 50 Jonathan Wagenknecht 50 Paul Rinaldi 50

National Institute of Development Administration Bunlang Gerdthungyang 42, 50 Natchaya Sakulpong 42, 50 Puch Jaroonwit 42, 50 Sunisa Intharachan 42, 50

Ohio University Ishan Matta 42, 50 Laura Ndoigo 42, 50 Melissa Damico 42, 50

Sophia University Magdalena Ionescu 32 Misshel Keyani 29 Tomohiro Loeer 29, 42

Southern Illinois University Carbondale Nelson Fernandes 65

Sri Venkateswara College of Engineering Abdul Wadood Shaik 42, 50 Haritha A S 42, 50 Renu Guntur 42, 50 Sowjanya Murari 42, 50

Swarthmore College Edward Tranter 13 Fiorenza Herrera Diaz 13 Haron Mwangangi Kalii 13

The Ohio State University Angela Heaney 51 Kaylee Chang 51 Mick Rash 51 Tinia Larkins 51

Universidad Católica del Uruguay María Josefina Martinez Calero 77

Universidad de Ingeniería y Tecnología Danae Chipoco 14 Diego Muñoz 14 Marcela C. Yeckle Damian 14, 42, 64, 78 Mirella Rivas 14, 42, 64, 79 Thalí­a Leyton 14, 42, 64 Valeria Aguayo 14, 64

Universidad de los Andes, Chile Carolina Orueta 64 Constanza Orellana 64 Fiorella Bacigalupo 64 Victoria Rozas 64

Universidad de Montevideo Carolina Vassallucci 80 Maria Romina Dominzain de Leon 81

Universidad del Desarrollo Constanza Standen 42, 43 Emilio Vera 43 Jose Ruiz 43 Julián Castilo 43

Universidad Tecnológica del Uruguay Ainara Saralegui 37 Juan Silva 37

University of Alabama at Birmingham Jeni Weber 83

University of Florida Jessica Aldrich 86

University of Nebraska at Omaha Joey Gruber 14, 44 Lavanya Uppala 14, 44 Marissa Morales 14, 44 Ryan Chapman 14, 44

University of North Florida Erisa Gjoka 29, 43 Jeff Chamberlain 66 Jules Gerstein 29, 43 Maxwell Twardowski 29, 43 Rory Hampson 29, 43 Tala Sartawi 29, 43

University of Richmond Anthony Moody 37 Chloe Khoshand 37 Danny Anderson 51 Emma Johnson 51 Khushi Basnyat 37 Nichole Schiff 51 Penny Hu 37 Sarah Schalkoff 37 Sophia Hartman 37, 51

University of St. Thomas Ben Frey 37 Jamie Tjornehoj 37 Pambayun Savira 37 Shawn Catudal 37

University of Twente Aaron van Santen 37 Marlen Braun 43, 52 Miriam Iliohan 70 Moritz Wagner 37, 43 Philippe Damoiseaux 37, 43 Rianne Dalhuisen 43, 52 Thomas Goudsblom 43, 52

University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee Ilya Avdeev 70

Utah Valley University Ashley Belnap 15 Elijah Allred 15 Nick Omori 15 Tori Hooper 15

Vidyavardhaka College of Engineering Avinash Arun Nadig 15, 52 Krishnakanth Pai 15, 52 Numaan Daulatabad 15, 52 Varsha Chandrashekar 15, 52

Virginia Tech Blake Warner 43 Gracee Hutchinson 43 Pierina Galvez Diaz 43 Sai Gurrapu 43

Wichita State University Alexander King 52 Angelique Banh 52 Corbin Prichard 52 Darren DeFrain 60 Jadie Chauncey 52 Jessica Aldrich 86

University of Technology Sydney Georgia Kirkpatrick-Jones 51 Gurvinder Bhatia 51 Harrison Kellick 51, 85 Juliet Hodgson 51

University of Tulsa Andrew Varvara 52 Ann Marie Flusche 52 Charles Wood 58 Freddy Ward 52 Ghulam Haider 52 Sheharyar Malik 52 Srivats Srinivasan 52 Suraj Vodnala 52

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thank you To all the University Innovation Fellows, Faculty Innovation Fellows candidates and Faculty Champions who shared their projects and passions with our team To illustrator Hannah Broadway for bringing our community members to life in her art To our colleagues at Stanford University’s d.school for their constant support and inspiration

CHANGE FORWARD Times of great challenge can also be times of great opportunity. In the past year, the students and teachers in our community have been working tirelessly to improve the education of their peers and help their schools navigate the ambiguity of these times. In this journal, we celebrate these amazing people by sharing their projects and perspectives on change in higher education.