Enitiative: Connecting forward-looking people.

2008-2010 Enitiative Projects in Technology

Enitiative funding has been awarded to the following projects that exemplify the vision of entrepreneurial Scholarship in Action for technology:

Developing an ESF/SU Student Green Energy Cooperative

Michael Kelleher and Neal Abrams from the SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry, Steve Lloyd and Craig Watters from Syracuse University, Linda Hartsock of the Empire State Development Corporation, Linda L. Clark of National Grid, and Jim Olcott Constellation Energy Products & Services Group, Inc., have been awarded an Enitiative grant to develop a green energy cooperative. 

The project will gather students, primarily scientists from ESF and business students from SU, to develop and implement the cooperative. The initial phase of the project will focus on the development of a business to deliver biodiesel to ESF and SU made from waste oils from the campuses. Students will develop a business plan, including production, research and development, operations, pricing, and transportation. ESF and SU will pay the cooperative for the biodiesel output in the form of “green dollars,” which will provide the cooperative with funds to make investments in campus sustainability projects.

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Dome Speeches

Susan Bonzi, Associate Professor at Syracuse University’s School of Information Studies has been awarded an Enitiative grant to enhance her course, IST 444: Information Reporting and Presentation.

IST 444 is a required course for iSchool and Whitman undergraduates. Students will learn to pitch an innovative or entrepreneurial idea to their boss at a professional sporting event, while the boss is being served food and drinks, by implementing a "dome speech," similar to an "elevator speech." The students will practice their pitches in a skybox at the Carrier Dome.

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LEEDing Edge

Lisa Cleckner, of the Syracuse Center of Excellence in Environmental and Energy Systems and adjunct professor in the College of Engineering and Computer Science at Syracuse University, and Hanah Ehrenreich of CNY Works, have been awarded an Enitiative grant to provide green workforce development training.

This initiative provides opportunities for students, contractors, business owners, and other professionals to obtain accreditation as green building professionals. Enitiative funds will offset training and exam costs for the US Green Building Council’s Leadership in Environmental and Energy Design (LEED) so that individuals can become LEED accredited professionals (LEED-AP).

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Enhancing Geographically Distributed Collaboration in Central New York Through Campus Community Partnerships

Derrick L. Cogburn, Associate Professor at the iSchool and Director of the Center for Research on Collaboratories and Technology Enhanced Learning Communities at Syracuse University, has been awarded an Enitiative grant for course development. 

The course focuses on the theory and practice of socio-technical infrastructure to support virtual teams and organizations and takes an entrepreneurial approach to understanding geographically distributed collaboration in diverse public, private, and community-based contexts. The course will involve lecture, discussion, role-playing, and hands on lab sessions, as well as virtual and physical field trips to visit organizations. Students will also develop plans to implement a strategy to enhance geographically distributed collaboration in local organizations.

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Entrepreneurship in Information Management

David Dischiave, Professor of Practice at Syracuse University’s School of Information Studies, has been awarded an Enitiative grant to fund an entrepreneurial graduate assistant.

The graduate student will incorporates entrepreneurship into many aspects of the iSchool.  His or her responsibilities will encompass two main activities that support entrepreneurial thinking.  The roles to be managed will involve collaborating with the Women in Information Technology's BOOST initiative and providing assistance to the IST 971 Information Management's Entrepreneurial Thinking competition. 

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The Principal Communication Model (PCM)

Benjamin Dotger, Assistant Professor at Syracuse University’s School of Education, has been awarded an Enitiative grant to create a Principal Communication Model (PCM) to enhance the communication and engagement skills of school administrators.

The PCM will be designed to directly address training for administrators regarding what to say to parents, students, colleagues, and community representatives and how to say it.  Dotger will use significant input from area administrators to develop the PCM and to then infuse the resulting cases/procedures into a course offered to both pre-service and in-service school leaders. Professor Dotger and his students will work with SU’s Technology Transfer office for guidance in developing a marketable form of the PCM and proceeding through the process of copyright and/or trademark agreements.

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Northside “Green” Innovation

Kevin Lair, Assistant Professor of Architecture at Syracuse University, and Maarten Jacobs, from the Franciscan Collaborative Ministries, have been awarded an Enitiative grant to develop a collaborative partnership between MOD-ECO Design LLC and Franciscan Collaborative Ministries, through the Northside Asset Development Initiative (NADI).

The collaborative will focus on innovative green business and green workforce development. MOC-ECO design is targeting a small group of students and recent graduates who have an advanced level of motivation and skills in the areas of design/build, peer leadership, and community projects. The students and graduates will be working on design development such as drawings and documentation, modeling, energy simulations, and performance simulations, research, and other tasks involved in architectural design as well as implementation and construction of the designs. They will be working with various professionals, including the NADI partner contractors and community workforce development groups such as BOCES, Onondaga Community College, and CNY Works.

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Digital Entrepreneurship and Excellence Program (DEEP)

Jing Lei, Assistant Professor of Education at Syracuse University, has been awarded an Enitiative grant to promote Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) entrepreneurship to at-risk youth on Syracuse’s South Side.

The Digital Entrepreneurship and Excellence Program (DEEP) is an after-school program designed to inspire excellence among disadvantaged students. DEEP will focus on the development of ICT entrepreneurship: the ability to use ICT to create technology products, provide digital services, and pursue a fulfilling career in the digital economy. A variety of authentic and inquiry-based ICT activities and projects will be designed to engage students in ICT inquiry, communication, expression, and construction to equip them with essential ICT capacities to live, work, and lead in a digital economy. The project will be supported by strong university-community connection and collaboration, and the program will be connected to Instructional Technologies for Educational Settings, a graduate course offered every fall semester.

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Syracuse Campus-Entrepreneurship Initiative

A team of faculty and staff from the L.C. Smith College of Engineering and Computer Science at Syracuse University and FanaSys, LLC have been awarded an Enitiative grant to develop a strain sensor. FanaSys, LLC, a local company formed in 2006, is involved in developing a platform technology for coated core optical fibers. The partners of FanaSys are faculty and staff at Syracuse University, a program director at the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, and the President of Acrolite, a specialty illumination fiber manufacturing company in Elbridge, NY.

Engineering students will work with FanaSys to develop a strain sensor system which may be used to remotely monitor the stress conditions on bridges, buildings, pipe lines, parking garages, security fences, and other applications to detect unsafe conditions before the structures collapse.  While developing the product, students will learn the technical and business aspects of starting and maintaining a company.

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Infusing Entrepreneurship into Manufacturing Processes

Young Moon, Associate Professor at Syracuse University’s L.C. Smith College of Engineering and Computer Science, has been awarded an Enitiative grant to infuse entrepreneurship into an undergraduate engineering course at Syracuse University.

MFE 331: Manufacturing Processes is a required course for students majoring in Mechanical Engineering, featuring a semester-long project which includes developing new products that provide the students with a context of learning and applying the knowledge of manufacturing processes. A number of new course modules in entrepreneurship will be developed for the course, including topics such as: (i) how to determine the feasibility of a new product as a potentially successful venture, (ii) how to identify organizations or people for supporting entrepreneurship activities, (iii) how to find resources needed to realize a successful startup enterprise, (iv) how to identify potential markets and customers, and (v) how to present the business ideas.

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Entrepreneurial Thinking at the Library: Becoming Relevant to Potential Users through Gaming

Scott Nicholson, Associate Professor at Syracuse University’s iSchool, has been awarded an Enitiative grant to incorporate entrepreneurship into library use by promoting gaming as a relevant library service.

Gaming programs for libraries can increase the effectiveness of library services, as they bring in new users who can take advantage of already purchased library resources in a safe and non-commercial setting. The Library Game Lab of Syracuse develops selection criteria and program guidelines for games in libraries, provides exposure to various types of games for librarians, and creates ways to present and market gaming programs to those that may be skeptical about the value of games in libraries.  Gaming, as an interactive activity, increases people’s ability to judge and take risks, to improve their decision-making ability and confidence, to accept and learn from failure, and to make them more agile in changing and uncertain life situations.  These skills are critical in adapting to the changing face of the workplace.

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Infusion of Entrepreneurship into the Curriculum and across Disciplines

Thomas Paczkowski, Fred L. Emerson Endowed Chair in Innovation and Enterprise,
 and John Lamphere, Criminal Justice/History Instructor, both at Cayuga Community College, along with William Speck, District Superintendent, and Anthony Abbatiello, Director of Technology, both at Cayuga-Onondaga BOCES, have been awarded an Enitiative eTeam grant to conduct research into how entrepreneurship can be imbedded into all disciplines at Cayuga Community College (CCC).

CCC faculty from various disciplines will explore what entrepreneurship means within their context and discipline and how faculty can encourage and facilitate students learning entrepreneurship. The goal is to stimulate student imagination and creativity through means determined by the research. Faculty from the area BOCES center will do the same – integrate entrepreneurship into existing courses and programs.  BOCES staff will be given the opportunity to determine how the concept and spirit of entrepreneurship may be infused into their curriculum.

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Interdisciplinary Center for Web Design

Jeff Rubin, Professor of Practice at Syracuse University’s iSchool, has been awarded an Enitiative grant to create the Interdisciplinary Center for Web Design.

The Center will combine the efforts of 4-8 course sections a year to provide students with real-world exposure to clients requesting advice on web services, website design and development.  Students will be prepared to work as web-entrepreneurs by exposure to real world clients with current web design and development needs.  Students might come from any program, while courses will come from the iSchool undergraduate and graduate programs and the Newhouse New Media graduate program.

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Facilitating the Innovation Process

Ruth Small, Meredith Professor at Syracuse University’s iSchool, and Don Kelly, Chief Executive of Intellectual Asset Management Associates, LLC, have been awarded an Enitiative eTeam grant for their study, “Facilitating the Innovation Process:
Motivational Influences and Information Requirements.”

The research will probe the factors that contribute to or support inventive thinking and the innovation creation process and, particularly, (1) what role information seeking skills, resources, and technologies play in supporting that process and related activities and (2) what human and other influences motivate that process. A pilot study involving surveys and interviews of adult and child inventors and entrepreneurs is underway. Enitiative funding will allow Small and Kelly to extend this study into public libraries.

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Sustainable Innovations in the Built Environment

Kevin Stack, Visiting Professor, and Chuck Spuches, Associate Dean for Outreach and Instructional Quality, both at the SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry (ESF), have been awarded an Enitiative grant for course development at SUNY ESF. 

Through their Sustainable Innovations in the Built Environment project they will develop a new course for upper division undergraduate and graduate students to provide students with green entrepreneurship classroom and experiential learning opportunities.  The grant will also allow them to incorporate entrepreneurship-based learning activities into a new Introduction to Green Entrepreneurship class for lower division undergraduates and to incorporate related entrepreneurship instructional modules into the annual Green Building Conference. Class projects will link students to the Near Westside Initiative­ – a LEED for Neighborhood Development Pilot Program project.

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Academy for Sustainability and Green Entrepreneurship (SAGE)

Richard Beal, Associate Director of Educational Outreach and Adjunct Professor in the Department of Environmental and Forest Biology, and Chuck Spuches, Associate Dean for Outreach and Instructional Quality, both at the SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry (ESF), have been awarded an Enitiative eTeam grant to strengthen a program that engages young people in green entrepreneurship.

SUNY-ESF created the ESF in the High School program in 1999 to provide motivated and capable high school students opportunities for pre-collegiate university- level science learning experiences, and to offer high school teachers opportunities for science-rich professional development experiences.  This project will build upon ESF in the High School program and offer a new course, Introduction to Green Entrepreneurship, while also engaging students from The Whitman School of Management and ESF science and engineering students as mentors and consultants.

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Technology as Public Good

Murali Venkatesh, Associate Professor at Syracuse University’s iSchool, and Linda Littlejohn, Associate Vice President of Community initiatives for Academic Affairs at SU, and South Side Community Coalition Project Manager, have been awarded an Enitiative grant for course development.

The course will equip professionals-in-training with the conceptual frameworks and practical social skills derived from an ethical and socially-responsible perspective on technology in order that they may effectively intervene in public technology initiatives as public-spirited citizens. Students will be exposed to key ideas and values of participatory democracy and citizen activism. They will work with local neighborhoods to develop (a) robust strategies for citizen participation in the design and ongoing development of local technology projects, and (b) three workshops to train citizen activists around technology access/use issues.

Syracuse Student Sandbox

The Syracuse Student Sandbox is a collaboration of The Syracuse Technology Garden and Syracuse University to develop early stage student-led businesses. After learning the basics of entrepreneurship, and coming up with ideas that can create business opportunities, these young entrepreneurs have an opportunity to spend the summer months at The Tech Garden where they receive the advice of local business professionals as well as resources from alumni interested in promoting their success. First piloted at Syracuse University, the courses and Sandbox opportunity are now being offered to five other local institutions (Le Moyne College, SUNY ESF, SUNY OCC, SUNY Cayuga Community College, and SUNY Morrisville). The program, while still in the early stages, holds significant promise as a mechanism for retaining smart, high achieving students in our community and benefiting from their entrepreneurial drive and business success.

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