Dayton Engineer

By Devon Florczak

Epicenter or the National Center for Engineering Pathways to Innovation, funded by the National Science Foundation is a Center dedicated to offering entrepreneurship and innovation programs for engineering students and faculty.  One program offered for undergraduate students in engineering and other areas of study is the UIF program, which gives training and support to students to become leaders who become activists for change on their own respective campuses.  Fellows help students learn about what an entrepreneurial mindset really is, while combining other aspects such as innovation, creativity, design thinking and venture creations to use at their schools.

Congratulations to Cameron Crasto, Suzanne Dorsey, Reid Fuente, Daniela Lopez and Devin Spatz, who are among the 155 students from 47 schools the Center selected to work toward creating more opportunities for students at their schools to develop innovation, entrepreneurship and design thinking skills.

"These five represent some of the best innovative and entrepreneurial student minds we have on campus," said Ken Bloemer, director of the University of Dayton Visioneering Center and sponsor of the University of Dayton students. "I am confident they will make significant contributions to the national discussion of entrepreneurship in engineering education and to our efforts in that area at the University of Dayton.

Ideas from the UD group include:

• Create a student-run incubator for advising students in the early stages of project development
• Create a database of innovators that students can tap into for partnerships
• Develop a new innovation and entrepreneurship course open to all first-year students

"We believe that students can be so much more than just customers of higher education," said Humera Fasihuddin, co-leader of the UIF program. "Fellows are acting as co-designers of the higher education experience, and they are actively collaborating with faculty and administrators to make lasting changes at their schools. They utilize their resourcefulness, creativity and national network to make measurable gains, both in the number of resources and the students served by the innovation and entrepreneurship ecosystem."

Congratulations once again to Cameron Crasto, Suzanne Dorsey, Reid Fuente, Daniela Lopez and Devin Spatz for being selected to the National Center or Engineering Pathways to Innovation University Innovation Fellows program!

Return to the Dayton Engineer Blog for updates from the Dayton UIF team and continuation of the UD UIF story!