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DEFINING THE FUTURE OF BUSINESS: EXPERIENTIAL LEARNING

Hands on. Real world. Collaborative. Project based. Such terms have defined Poole College’s approach to teaching from our founding 20 years ago. It’s a blend of classroom instruction, student research, and applied learning. That last part challenges students to apply everything they’ve been taught to a real world problem and to produce and present a solution to a ‘client’ – their project sponsor or mentor.

The results are pretty amazing. Students gain experience that qualifies them to tell a recruiter that, “Yes, I have experience with that kind of a situation (or something similar), and I can tell you how I solved it.” Employers – especially those who worked with the student on the project – can expect their new recruit will be able to hit the ground running.

Students meet this kind of challenge throughout Poole College’s curriculum. In any given semester, students are working in teams or individually on projects in biosciences management, human resources, information technology, supply chain, entrepreneurship, marketing, product innovation, and enterprise risk management. They report their findings to company officials in the classroom or company board rooms, and present poster sessions summarizing their projects at the college’s Leadership and Innovation Showcase, held each spring in Nelson Hall.

SOLVING PROBLEMS

Following are several examples of the problem solving projects that move Poole College students beyond the classroom and into company conference rooms.

  • The Supply Chain Resource Cooperative (SCRC) marked the 10th anniversary of its teaching model with a publication in the December 2011 issue of the journal Interfaces. The authors report that 1,251 undergraduate and graduate students completed 331 projects with 39 companies in the areas of operations management, operations research, management science, supply chain management and information systems from the time SCRC was established in 2000. SCRC currently has 11 partner companies.
  • For over a decade, students in the Jenkins MBA program’s Innovation Management Lab class have produced amazing results as they develop innovative market-focused solutions to complex problems. One group in the December 2011 class developed a prototype device that monitors the amount of pesticide being applied and retained on surfaces in malaria-prone regions of the world. It has potential for helping to assure that proper amounts of the pesticide are being applied, to control and eradicate mosquito populations. This class is among the Ten Most Innovative Business School courses, according to Forbes.com.
  • Students in the Master of Accounting program in the past year have helped organizations like the Girls Scouts of North Carolina Coastal Pines Council implement Enterprise Risk Management processes throughout their organization. Undergraduate and graduate students – like Marycobb Randall – have opportunities to assist faculty in their research. Randall is working with Dr. Joseph Brazel in an accounting research project.
  • Students in the Master of Global Innovation Management (MGIM) program work on innovation-related projects both during their fall semester in France, collaborating with French companies, and their spring semester at Poole College, where the college’s Center for Innovation Management Studies (CIMS) and the Biosciences Management Initiative (BioSci) provide connections with the business community. During one project in 2011, a student team created an innovative solution to a vexing problem for the French company MonShowroom.com: How to pick the correct size when ordering online. The student team completed market research, analyzed their survey results and provided two possible solutions: an interactive online community that engaged customers in real time ‘size advice’ and feedback, and the implementation of augmented reality on the company’s website, allowing customers to ‘try on’ their clothes while at home.

CONNECTING DATA, FINDING POTENTIAL IP COLLABORATORS

Jenkins MBA students in the biosciences management concentration are learning to help companies connect with potential collaborators for research and development projects. In the process, they also have been gaining critical data analysis skills using IBM’s Big Data software. Students access the software via NC State’s Virtual (Cloud) Computing Lab (managed by the College of Engineering’s Department of Computing Science), plug in their highly targeted key word searches and analyze the results. They are guided by instructors Dr. Richard Kouri, professor of practice and the BioSci Initiative director; Sam Straight, lecturer and Poole College executive in residence; and mentor Dr. Michael Kowolenko, CIMS fellow. The student teams have been working on these projects with a number of companies in the nearby Research Triangle Park, including Eisai, PRA International, Gentris, and BASF: real world connections that bring classroom exercises to life.

Undergraduate students in Kouri’s Business Opportunities Analysis class – part of the college’s minor in entrepreneurship course sequence – are learning to use the same analysis tools as they work on projects in collaboration with NC State’s Biomedical Engineering (BME) program. In this case, they are identifying technologies that have potential for solving healthcare problems identified by the BME students in the prior fall semester, during their study of processes at a regional hospital system in Raleigh, N.C. The students are being mentored by Kouri and Kowolenko. The goal is to have students learn ‘how’ to manage potential start-up opportunities, rather than ‘what’ to manage, Kouri explains. While new venture formation is the primary focus, the processes and skills students develop are also relevant to the creation of new product offerings by existing firms.

LAUNCHING BUSINESSES

The college’s Jenkins MBA concentration in entrepreneurship and technology commercialization pairs MBA students with graduate students in science and engineering, forming teams that create new business startups from NC State-generated technologies.

Roger Debo was one of the first students in the first class of what has become known as the HiTEC program. For the past decade, he has served as the program’s director, managing the student teams as they work with mentors and inventors to identify a market and develop a business plan for their patented technologies.

The teams work closely with NC State’s Office of Technology Transfer (OTT) and, in increasing numbers, end up launching new business ventures. Debo received an NC State Entrepreneur of the Year award in 2011 from OTT and the university’s Springboard Institute, recognizing his dedicated service to the program and the university’s technology transfer efforts. His work itself, though, has repeatedly provided another reward along the way: Seeing serious classroom exercises evolve into viable start-ups. In 2011, work by the student teams led to the launch of VaporPulse Technologies and Polymer Braille, Inc. A venture launched in 2010 – Xanofi – saw significant growth in the past year as well.

  • VaporPulse Technologies began as SunEvade [scroll down the page to the ‘Not Fade Away’ story], a TEC project that won first place in the graduate division of the college’s 2011 Leadership and Innovation Showcase. The company is developing nano-coatings for fibers to protect them from UV rays. One of its original team members, Chris Oldham, Ph.D., MBA, (2011), is its chief executive officer. [View a video with Oldham and others discussing their work.] The company is one of 12 start-ups receiving funds through NC State University’s Chancellor’s Innovation Fund in 2011.
  • Polymer Braille, Inc., which also had competed in Poole College’s Showcase, was placed on OTT’s NC State Fast 15, along with Xanofi and VaporPulse. Polymer Braille is developing a Braille-like device for the blind, with former student team member Will Mears (MBA 2011) actively involved. Xanofi was also on the Fast 15 list. Xanofi and Polymer Braille, Inc., are based on technologies developed by researchers in NC State’s College of Engineering; VaporPulse Technologies is based on technologies from the College of Textiles.

The HiTEC model itself has gone global, via TECnet, a network of resources for universities, economic development organizations in Portugal (COTEC), Ireland and other countries, as well as other universities in the U.S. Just as with the HiTEC concentration at Poole College and its work with OTT staff at NC State, the goal of TECnet was to speed the transition from IP-protected university research into hi-tech hi-growth businesses.

Dr. Ted Baker, associate professor of entrepreneurship, and Debo were lead faculty for the project, funded by a $70,000 grant from the U.S. Department of Education. Baker and Debo worked with collaborators at Brown University, Loughborough University (UK), and COTEC, a consortium of Portuguese universities. They benchmarked policies and practices for high growth entrepreneurship education, created a network of collaborative web-based resources that provide assistance to both the educators and students within partner institutions, enabled collaborative research on the outcomes of process-based technology entrepreneurship education, and disseminated the results broadly in order to advance the field and build the network.

The program wrapped up in summer 2011. In February 2012, the TECnet partners announced the first commercialization of intellectual properly assessed through the HiTEC model. FMC Corporation announced that it signed an exclusive distribution and development agreement with Consumo em Verde (CEV), Biotecnologia das Plantas, S.A. of Portugal for the unique patented fungicidal active ingredient blad. FMC’s Agricultural Products Group will develop and market the product in the United States and Canada as Problad Plus™ for all crop and non-crop uses.

In the past year, Poole College’s entrepreneurship faculty has created The Entrepreneurship Collaborative, to coordinate and provide information about their academics, research and outreaching activities. Their new website will launch in mid-spring 2012, providing an online environment that connects students, alumni, entrepreneurs and other mentors, along with information regarding the college’s entrepreneurship activities in academics, research and engagement. Check back later for the new link.

PHOTO

Dr. Richard Kouri, professor of practice in the Department of Management, Innovation and Entrepreneurship, and Dr. Michael Kowolenko, research fellow in the Center for Innovation Management Studies, meet with student teams in the Business Opportunities Analysis class as they analyze potential new business opportunities that can help resolve healthcare-related problems identified by students in NC State’s Biomedical Engineering (BME) program as part of a course they complete in the prior semester.