SYSTEMS TECHNOLOGY RESEARCH INSTITUTE
EXECUTIVE STAFF: Terrell Pim Akash Abraham Frank Merat, Ph.D.
MISSION: STRI helps university and college graduate students become tomorrow’s Information and Communications Technology entrepreneurs in NE Ohio. VISION OF THE FUTURE By 2016, NE Ohio will have a network of young entrepreneurs and innovators in both early stage and established companies who began working with one another while in graduate school at NE Ohio universities and colleges. Degrees will be in disciplines such as computer engineering and science, electrical engineering, digital arts and integrated media. This network of professionals working in areas of the Information and Communications Technology (ICT) Sector will be a force in helping established NE Ohio companies to adopt new processes and enter new markets, and in expanding our base of early stage companies, and in attracting “like people” to the region. Both retention of entrepreneurial students in NE Ohio after graduation and attraction of top students to our universities and colleges are high priorities of STRI programs. STRATEGY FOR GETTING THERE
In the best selling book, The World Is Flat by Thomas L. Friedman, ten forces are identified that have globalized the world. Information technology is at the heart of all ten. Personal computers, the internet, outsourcing, supply chaining, and digital communications are the forces that have allowed globalization to happen. These forces are not going away and will continue to redefine every industry, including traditional industries such as manufacturing. Innovating and using the information infrastructure is the present and the future. Within Northeast Ohio, over 72,000 jobs are in the IT sector. 39% of those jobs are with ICT companies, such as Hyland Software. The other 61% of the jobs are with users of ICT technology. This would include sophisticated, information intensive organizations such as Progressive Insurance, Cleveland Clinic, KeyBank, GE and NASA as well as small enterprises with one or two system support staff: Supporting young, college-age entrepreneurs is not as unlikely as it might first seem. London School of Business and Babson College publish an annual Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM) report. They study the entrepreneurial landscape in 35 countries. In 2005, 12.4% of Americans were involved in an entrepreneurial pursuit, the
highest rate in the G7 countries. The highest level of entrepreneurial activity took place within the 25-34 year old age group: There are several regional programs directed toward high school students through E CITY and the Northeast Council on Higher Education (NOCHE). E CITY's mission is to teach entrepreneurship to low-income young people in the Cleveland area by improving their academic, business, technology and life skills so that they can become economically productive members of society and break the cycle of poverty in their communities. NOCHE has a variety of initiatives to attract and retain the best talent in Northeast Ohio. STRI complements these existing efforts by providing a program focused on young entrepreneurs and supports the “end-to-end talent continuum” described by NorTech in its 2006 visioning document.
STRI Programs fall under two classifications: Entrepreneurial Students start companies based their own product concepts developed independently or in conjunction with course work. Students receive academic credit for entrepreneurial projects as approved by faculty. Intrapreneurial Students work on product development projects sponsored by companies in the Information and Communications Technology Sector. Projects include technical development, market analysis, business plans and implementation. Four universities and one college are collaborating with STRI in launching these programs. They are: Case Western Reserve, Cleveland State and Kent State Universities, University of Akron and The Cleveland Institute of Art. The four universities have undergraduate and graduate degree programs in computer engineering and/or computer science, and The Cleveland Institute of Art (CIA) offers internationally recognized degree programs in industrial design, digital arts and integrated media. Graduate students in computer engineering and science are developing product concepts and business ideas that many would like to turn into businesses. Students at CIA work on a wide variety of product development projects in hardware, software, content and process with established companies and with new entrepreneurs. Linking students from different disciplines with a variety of skill sets will help them accomplish their entrepreneurial goals and gain real time experience as entrepreneurs and innovators. Organizations collaborating with STRI include: NorTech, OneCommunity, Ohio-ICE, nanonetwork, JumpStart, NEOSA (Northeast Ohio Software Association), NOCHE (Northern Ohio Council on Higher Education), Youngstown Business Incubator (focused on ICT enterprises), and World Trade Center -- Cleveland. Strategy for regional student networking and collaboration on projects: Despite our interconnected world, proximity still matters in creating excitement and community. STRI will have permanent space in Idea Center including 2,100 square feet of flexible office and lab space with OneCommunity network connectivity for students working individually or in teams.
Broadband Internet connectivity provided through OneCommunity will enable video conferencing and design collaboration between students and faculty mentors at multiple locations in NE Ohio. OneCommunity network will connect student entrepreneurs to software and equipment for development and test of software in Linux, Microsoft and Solaris environments by year end.
2006-07 CRITICAL GOALS STRI NEEDS TO ACHIEVE 1. Establish offices, lab and student work areas in Idea Center 2. With university and college officials identify at least 25 student-driven product concepts to be piloted as start-up ventures or paired with existing start-ups 3. Monitor student progress and provide coaching as needed. 4. Educate students about legal, financial and intellectual property issues 5. Identify and supervise mentors for student ventures 6. Identify and cultivate corporate sponsors 7. Identify and cultivate seed funding for student ventures 8. Provide input to the universities as needed where course credit is granted to these ventures.
The goals listed above are essentially “tangible metrics” that can be met and verified. However, my personal satisfaction come from seeing an active, collaborative regional network of 20 to 40 year old engineers, scientists and artists operating as a dynamic network of innovators and entrepreneurs making things happen in NE Ohio in the Information and Communications Technology Sector. Digital arts and integrated media play a significant role in creating new products for the knowledge age. Industrial design is perhaps a misnomer as this discipline is equally important in developing and maintaining an innovative culture here and nationally – it extends well beyond the term “industrial”. We have watched too many of our best students in engineering, science and the arts graduate, leave the area and not return. Other regions have “brain drain” in similar proportion as NE Ohio, according to figures quoted by Carol Cartwright, former President of Kent State University. But, other regions have “brain gain” and NE Ohio does not, said Carol Cartwright in a talk last winter. I want to see the reverse of this trend and know that STRI had a part to play in the positive change.