Three Tennessee Tech students completed curriculum to be launched as Stanford fellows.
Mik Davis, Courtney Savage and Rachel Smith, Tech’s cohort, received a fellowship and grant opportunity at Stanford University through a program called the University Innovation Fellowship.
The UIF is a worldwide program run and sponsored by Stanford’s school of design.
“The goal of the program is to educate students in the art of design thinking and innovation techniques so that they can launch cutting-edge new programs at their home universities,” Smith said.
At Tech, the program is overseen by the innovation and entrepreneurship committee. All three students applied to the committee and selected to serve on it, then applied as a group to the Stanford program.
To be launched as fellows, the cohort completed six weeks of curriculum including interviewing prominent campus figures for online modules and working on design processes and techniques.
“After the six-week curriculum was completed, all of our work was reviewed by the team at Stanford and we were approved a launched as fellows. Now, for the next six weeks, we have to launch our projects,” Smith said.
Courtney Savage, a nursing student, begins work on her social entrepreneurship and medical design club iCare project. Rachel Smith, a wildlife and fisheries science major, begins work with the college of interdisciplinary studies and its dean, Mike Gotcher, to provide an outdoor leadership class in the future. Mik Davis, communication studies and political science major, begins operational work on a television/broadcast studio in the Volpe Library for student use.
“We applied and completed the program because we wanted to better the campus community and contribute to the innovation and entrepreneurship culture on campus,” Smith said. “We really hope that what we do through this fellowship opens up the innovation and entrepreneurship culture on this campus to different populations of students.”
