Loyola Innovates
Center for Innovation & Entrepreneurship - April 2019
Be a member of CI&E's Steering Committee!
The Center for Innovation & Entrepreneurship Student Steering Committee is an integral part of the success of our Center. We rely on our Committee to provide input and guidance on the direction of the Center, and students are the ones who take the lead on developing and executing key Center activities, to ensure that they are designed for students’ interests and needs.
Interested in becoming one of our six committee members for ’19/20? All students are eligible to apply. Members must have a passion for innovation and entrepreneurship and a commitment to lead a project, attend monthly committee meetings, participate in Center activities like hackathons, and schedule periodic project update meetings with the Center Director.
What’s in it for you? Committee members will have irreplaceable experiences as changemakers designing and leading innovations on campus and in the community, will learn the principles of design thinking, and will develop close relationships with innovation faculty, administrators, and other student leaders. Yes, this will look good on your resume, AND you will learn and grow in the role like never before.
Visit our Steering Committee page to learn more and submit your application.
Social Impact Mentor Dinner
Welcome to our Startup Executive in Residence, Mustafa Wahid '15
Mustafa's schedule will be:
- Tuesday, April 16, 9:30 a.m. - 12:30 p.m., LND Library
- Friday, April 26, 9:30 a.m. - 12:30 p.m., SH 218
- Tuesday, April 30, 3:30 p.m. - 5:30 p.m., SH 218
For more information, email innovation@loyola.edu, or call 410-617-5235.
More about Mustafa:
Mustafa received his Bachelors of Science in Biology and Psychology with a minor in Philosophy from Loyola University Maryland, where his activities included Green and Grey, Student Government Association, Ju-Jitsu Club, and Muslim Student Association. He was an Entrepreneurship Fellow at the University of Baltimore MBA program, where he was the first MBA student to be accepted into a pilot program. He is currently CEO of TransitioningU, whose mission is to change a billion college student lives within a decade. On a good day Wahid can speak five different languages (Bengali, English, Hindi, Spanish, Urdu).
Congratulations to the BBWTB Poster & Pitch winners!
In its most competitive year yet, student innovators took their ideas to the next level with the Poster and Pitch Competition. As they vied for prize money and “Shark Tank” like notoriety, they were also seeking to do good. With the goal of developing an initiative, service, or product that contributes to Baltimore's economic and social well-being, the student competitors knocked it out of the park!
First place
Second place
Third place
People's Choice Winner
Thanks to the judges!
Great turnout this year!
Freedom to Fail, by Joshua Smith, Dean School of Education and Co-Founder, TransitioningU, LLC
I stopped dead in my tracks - we didn’t win the $25,000 prize.
I was already physically moving towards stage to collect “our” check. We delivered a killer pitch at an accelerator pitch competition, so strong that many people told us, “That was the best pitch by far.” I was confident the judges were going to select us. I was wrong. Overconfident and embarrassed, I stood and felt the sting of failure. Millions of questions were whirling through my head:
“Where did we do wrong?”
“Why didn’t we win?” and just as importantly,
“Did anyone see me walking towards the stage?”
Reeling from surprise and shame, I locked eyes with my co-founder and knew exactly what he was thinking. ‘We will learn from this failure, and never again will we be overly confident.’
Thus, we began our work debriefing as a team and correcting for our mistakes. We had tailored our pitch to the wrong audience. After hours of hard toil, we tweaked our presentation again, and learned how to tailor our pitch to who matters the most (in this case, the judges.)
Although that ‘failure’ stung in the moment, it taught us a valuable lesson which has since helped us raise tens of thousands of dollars through investment and/or customer revenue. That momentary ”failure” helped propel us further than if we would have won the competition.
The number of quotes, articles, and books that have some version of “freedom to fail,” in the title are countless and growing, I strongly believe that we should embrace failure, teach failure, and teach people how to reflect on decisions and circumstances that contributed to a failed exam, venture, or goal. However the reality of the current educational system is that we do the opposite. Higher education and society in general celebrate outcomes such as high school/college GPA, admission to “elite” colleges, and job placement. Resumes and cover letters highlight success with little or no reference to effort, or descriptions of how to pick oneself up after a setback or failure.
Innovation, entrepreneurship, and perhaps a good life itself requires us to fail and fail again. For students thinking about starting a business, failure will become your steady friend. You have hundreds, if not thousands of decisions to make - from the idea itself, to putting together a team, to executing on benchmarks. Very rarely do any of these, and the countless other decisions, go without some minor or major bumps in the road
In short, as it relates to entrepreneurship - failing is how you get and sustain motivation to hone your pitch, research the best information available on competition or similar products, and make the tough decisions, even when you wish you had more time to think it over. Anything that comes easy or without some failure is not worth achieving. So get out there, take some risks, and fail. You and society will be better off for it!
Register now for our pre-fall Innovation Bootcamp!
The Innovation Bootcamp, hosted by Loyola's Center for Innovation & Entrepreneurship, will be a crash course in design thinking and innovative practices. Incoming Sophomores, Juniors, and Seniors are invited to learn the basic principles of human-centered design, test and solve wicked problems, and apply inspiration, ideation, and implementation into their academic courses, volunteer work, and professional lives.
Innovation Bootcamp participants will use community-based learning sessions and maker activities at Baltimore's Innovation Village and Open Works to experience first-hand how design thinking can transform difficult challenges into opportunities. The bootcamp will culminate with an interactive collaboration with other students, faculty members, and administrators to bring design thinking to the forefront of innovative activities at Loyola.
Dates: Wednesday, August 28 - Saturday, August 31
Visit our event page on Handshake for more info and to register!
Lange Lounge Design Competition - Deadline Approaching!
We're pleased to be making progress on our newest makerspace, Lange Innovation Lounge! There are plans to fill the space with resources and tools for members of our community to explore and create in new and exciting ways.
Those plain cream colored walls, though? We're sure that we can come up with something more energizing - and that's where YOU come in! We're calling on Loyola students to submit design ideas for the interior of Lange Innovation Lounge, and we can't wait to see what you come up with!
Submissions are being accepted now, with a deadline of Friday April 26. Visit the competition page for more information.
UIF SFO visit summary
The University Innovation Fellows (UIFs) program is run through the Stanford University d.school. The UIF website states that “We believe students can change the world.” The goal is to empower students to become leaders of change in higher education. Fellows are creating a global movement to ensure that all students gain the necessary attitudes, skills and knowledge to compete in the economy of the future. Loyola University joined this program in 2017 and the third cohort of Loyola UIFs attended the UIF Silicon Valley Meetup March 21 - 25, 2019.
Our UIFs - Emily Manzo, Rachel Jarman, Jenna Bower, and Regina McCoy - shared some highlights from their trip:
- Working with Google Chief Innovation Evangelist Dr. Frederick Pferdt to gain a greater understanding of what it means to be an agent of change.
- Hearing from a diverse spectrum of Google employees, including Jaime Casap, Chief Education Evangelist, and Jason Cuadra from Project Loon, who encouraged us to take Moonshots: large game changing ideas that will change the world.
- Taking a tour of Stanford University's d.school, participating in inspiring activities such as "Yes, lets!", and working with other Fellows from around the world.
- Meeting with Bay-area Loyola alumni for dinner and conversation.
- Discussing leadership communication and the importance of being in the right physical and mental states when giving presentations and pitching ideas.
- Brainstorming and planning creative ideas to bring home to Loyola!
Loyola's UIFs
Stanford's d.school
SFO area alumni
Baltimore Mini Golf Maker Challenge - April 30th
On April 30th, completed mini golf holes will be arranged into a course, and challenge participants and library patrons can play the course and vote for their favorite mini golf hole. The creators of the fan favorite will win prizes!
Email cmlove@loyola.edu with any questions.