This week, I met Dr. Matias Soto, the Director of the Office of Innovation & Entrepreneurship, to hear details about this office and what experiences or resources Andrews students can gain from it.
Good morning, Dr. Soto! Could you please briefly introduce your position and the Office of Innovation and Entrepreneurship?
My name is Matias Soto, and I'm the director of the Office of Innovation and Entrepreneurship here at Andrews University. I have been in this position since this office was established, which is about a year and a half ago. The Office of Innovation and Entrepreneurship is not attached to any department or college in our school, meaning it's an office that serves the entire Andrews campus. Our goal is to promote and support innovation and entrepreneurship in its different forms.
I saw many events and programs hosted by the Office of Innovation and Entrepreneurship! I think the pitch competition is one of the biggest events, so could you please give us more details for students who have not heard about this?
The goal of the pitch competition is to provide students with seed funding for their business ideas. The total amount of funding we will distribute is $30,000 in cash awards. Every student or team of students will present in front of a panel of judges during the semifinals on March 29 and will be evaluated based on the content of their presentation, business idea, and how well they presented it. The top eight teams will move on to the finals at the Howard Performing Arts Center on March 31, from 2 to 4 PM. A panel of judges will evaluate each presenter, and we hope to have a large audience to support the students. The final winners will be announced within 10 to 15 minutes after the final presenter has made their speech, followed by a reception in the lobby. The application deadline is March 17 at 7 PM, right before the spring break and Sabbath starts. So do try out, and if not, come and cheer for your friends.
That is an awesome opportunity! Does your office hold any other events that you would like to highlight? I remember the Art Exhibit & Sale held during Almuni Homecoming Weekend. Was that also an event held by the Office of Innovation and Entrepreneurship?
Yes. We partnered with some faculty members to initiate it, and the official name is Made at Andrews. We are trying to grow that into a store, actually. It will start with an online store, and we hope to have an actual physical store. The sale we did during the alumni weekend was to test the idea and see how much interest came from both the artists and the consumers. There was a very good response from both sides. So at the moment, we are developing an online e-commerce store and branding. The online stores will be open to everyone—any student or faculty member of Andrews. There would be a small fee to sell, as any store would charge, but other than that, anyone can submit their items, and they will be placed on the online store after a selection process. We hope to launch this in April so that we can display items during the graduation weekend.
Are there also programs like academic courses for students to learn entrepreneurship?
We have a program called Interdisciplinary Innovation & Entrepreneurship Certificate (INEN), which has been around for about five or six years, so even before this office started. A group of faculty members from diverse fields, such as agriculture, business, computer science, and graphic design, joined forces and started this. The program consists of four main courses, one elective, and seminar attendance. The main courses are Intro to Innovation & Entrepreneurship, Prototyping and Tinkering, and Implementation Tool Box, which teaches entrepreneurship and business principles. The fourth course is Advanced Project, in which students will launch their idea in some shape or form. The weekly seminar allows students to listen to speakers and learn more about entrepreneurship and innovation.
The goal of this certificate is to make it applicable to any major on campus. Regardless of your background, if you are interested in learning more about innovation, such as how to start a business, develop an idea, prototype an idea, and understand your potential customers and market, I recommend you to take courses for the certificate. By the end, you will have a product and a business plan ready to be launched, so it's a very practical set of courses. The courses engage the student through hands-on experience and encourage them to create an idea and develop it. You can launch a business; this certificate will give you all the necessary tools.
That sounds really fun, and I think many students will find those courses informative! On top of all these programs and events, I think your effort for interdisciplinary education is helping more students to see entrepreneurs in themselves regardless of their majors. I heard your office is partnering with the School of Engineering to introduce more engineering students to the INEN certificate program. Could you give us more detail about that, and your goal in achieving a broader interdisciplinary entrepreneurship education?
Students are required to take four courses to complete their certificate, which can be difficult to fit in with many majors since they have tight credit requirements and curriculum. Engineering was one of such majors, and I found this challenge while talking with the engineering faculty. So what we did was figure out courses within their curriculum that could include more topics about entrepreneurship and innovation, so that some of those courses could count towards the certificate. This has been a good learning experience for me—especially since I'm new to Andrews—in understanding where the challenges exist for students to take part in entrepreneurship. I hope students will have fewer barriers to completing the certificate, and becoming part of the interdisciplinary effort on campus. If there's an interest within the department faculty, we can always arrange to help more of their students to take the certificate courses.
Being a biology major, I appreciate your effort in interdisciplinary entrepreneurship. The thing is, I am a senior graduating in a few months. Does your office provide any resources that students like me or those who cannot fit certification into their remaining time at Andrews can use?
Aside from the certificate, our office is open to providing an internship to students who are interested in learning some of the basics of entrepreneurship and those who may be interested in the idea but are clueless about where to start. I help students go through a process of ideation using design thinking. Design thinking forces you to understand who the beneficiary of your idea would be and what their needs are. From there, you can develop a solution. That is where prototyping comes in; you will keep testing your idea and receiving feedback until you find something more aligned with the customer's needs. Some may think their field is unrelated to entrepreneurship, but part of it is because they haven't been exposed to the needs. It all starts with finding a need. From there, you can figure out your tools and solution.
Something I would also recommend is to attend Innovation Week in March. We will have various things happening for the entire week, including a chapel, vespers, and the pitch competition on Friday. We'll have different groups and NGOs come to campus and talk about their work. So if you are wondering where to start, this could be the place to do that: attend it, learn what innovation entrepreneurship is, and see if you find your fit and interest. From there, you should be able to figure out your next steps.
Awesome, I'll keep my eyes out for it. May I know through which platforms students can receive more updates about Innovation week or any other updates from your office?
One would be our website, where we have all the information about the pitch competition, innovation week, seminars, and information about the certificate. But the problem is although we update the website regularly, it's pretty static. So I encourage you to follow our Instagram @andrewsinnovation to receive regular updates on upcoming events and stay more closely connected. We usually check our direct messages, so message us if you have questions.
Thank you for your time today, Dr. Soto! Before you leave, is there a resource you would like to see more students utilizing?
Yes, one excellent resource we have is the Maker Lab located at Art and Design Center 115. In this room, we have 3D printers, laser cutters with hand tools, drills, materials, soldering equipment, and even a few laptop computers for design provided FREE of charge to students. It is a relatively new space. We opened it barely a year ago, and now we see some students slowly trickling in to use this space. To use this space, you would have to receive equipment usage and safety training from an engineering student who works in the afternoon. To gain card access to the lab, they simply have to talk to me and receive approval so that I know they understand the rules. There are some limits in terms of the materials they can use, like the 3D printers that have more expensive filament material, but for the most part, everything is for your use.
We have all the resources available: a lab where students can create items for free, a pitch competition that gives students money to develop their business ideas, courses and seminars that teach the process. So my challenge to students is, what will you do with those resources? What problems are you going to solve? If you want to be a world changer, it starts with you.
If you have more questions, email innovate@andrews.edu, DM @andrewsinnovation, or visit the office, located in the Art & Design Center 111.
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