Business Commons^™

How To Increase A Company's Social Media Presence, Eunice Kim '22

2020 Intern Reports

The project pursued in this report is called “How to Increase a Company’s Social Media Presence.” In this context, “social media presence” will refer to how frequently Hespr posts and is active on Instagram, the levels of engagement on posts, and types of content uploaded. As the title suggests, this project will focus on factors that facilitate the growth of Hespr’s social media presence, as well as factors that may hinder progress.

Summer Internship Report, Isabel Chen '22

2020 Intern Reports

“Baby boomer,” “millennial,” and “Generations X and Z” are all familiar terms referring to the different Western cultural generations beginning from the late nineteenth century. And as they all signify a period of time in history, there are an array of associated ideas, beliefs, and traditions that come along with each. This research paper serves to explore how design and social media platforms can best cater to audiences of all generations, taking into account the differences in interests, opinions, and tendencies of each. Through observations and studies, it’s most effective to approach the audience in an attitude that is equally …

Civicly Envolved Intership: Working On The Candidate Profile Screen, Patrick Hultquist '21

2020 Intern Reports

Going into any situation, I think I’m always a little overconfident. This was no exception. I had previously made an (unimpressive) app, had talked to people before, and knew how to work with a team; so this would be all the same, right?I thought going into this that I would probably do something around 80%working and 20% learning. The very first day I realized how wrong I was. I learned that in this internship, I was going to, well, learn. At first, I felt kind of bad; I mean, I knew barely anything and had to be taught from the …

My Internship With The State Representative: An Overview, Nathan Tamez '21

2020 Intern Reports

My name is Nathan Tamez, and I am a Junior (‘21) at the Illinois Mathematics and Science Academy. I am currently thinking of going into Engineering (most likely Automotive or Mechanical). Honestly, I did not know what to expect when I signed up for the internship program, but what I heard from friends and the internship coordinators reassured me that there would be many opportunities to meet people with experience and to expand my network. Just as I expected, I was able to meet plenty of people, and even establish a connection with the Aurora Collective,a conjunction of businesses based …

Web Developing With Block Bins, Rajan Savani '21

2020 Intern Reports

Block Bins is a compost collection company based in Chicago that creates food scrap drop off points using shared bins, providing an inexpensive solution to people who want to compost their food scrap. This service is enabled with a website, automation, and data collection & analysis, which were developed and improved over the course of this internship. The goal of this project was to improve the current website with an updated front-end that uses modern web frameworks and a revised back-end that is better tailored to the Block Binsuse-case. These improvements would reduce reliance on third-party software and developers, and …

Venture Capital And Marketing With K8 Ventures, Rosario Picone '21

2020 Intern Reports

K8 Ventures is a venture builder studio, with investments in a diverse range of industries. K8’sgreatest skill is developing companies in-house, starting at Stage 1, what they call “an idea written on a napkin,” to Stage 5, which is a successful business already established in the market. Because K8 is investing in early-stage companies, they typically are able to take a larger share of equity in their developing companies. This allows them to take a managerial role in the company, thus taking some of the traditional risks out of venture capital. Over the past year with K8, they have provided …

Easy-To-Use Augmented Reality In The Mobile Industry: An Internship Experience, Abhi Vinnakota '21

2020 Intern Reports

This report details the work and research I have completed over the past few months with BUNDLAR. This company is a startup located in startup incubator 1871. BUNDLAR is currently developing their augmented reality mobile app that will launch in the near future. Over my time with them, I helped with market research. My research was focused on the Augmented Reality industry and performing competitive analysis on other AR companies. With this research, I was able to provide BUNDLAR with valuable recommendations and insights that helped shape their development around the target audience and industry. In addition, I also focused …

Safestart: Simplifying Technology For Seniors, Melissa Myint '21

2020 Intern Reports

Our project is nonprofit and aims to help seniors understand how to use technology in their daily lives by creating videos that are simple and easy to follow.As in this day and age seniors are afraid to use their smart devices other than the basic call function which can prevent seniors from receiving the benefits associated with the use of apps that could track their medication, allow them to video call, and etc. These seniors are therefore being left out from the increasing digital society. In order to accomplish this goal, we are creating instructional videos on the uses of …

Wesolv: Mba Job Analysis, Xiaofan Li '21

2020 Intern Reports

WeSolv is a startup that focuses on bringing the most qualified candidates to prospective hiring companies by designing and utilizing case challenges to accurately assess the candidates’ skill sets. The case challenges consist of several activities (presentations, research, etc.) that the candidates must execute, which measure their fit for potential jobs. For the past academic year, the company has provided information on how to obtain insight on their system metrics and to better understand the process of choosing their assessing skills. Since desired skills in candidates are fluid throughout time, the company needs to constantly ensure that they have the …

Building The Coursestars Brand, Melena Braggs '21

2020 Intern Reports

The main purpose of this project was to build the brand of Course Stars, a small tutoring business based in Illinois. This brand building was done through Facebook and Instagram, and the project lasted from November 2019 to March 2020. In that time, the analytics from Facebook and Instagram were tracked and analyzed. While there was a slight increase in the amount of interactions from the sites combined, there’s still few followers on Instagram. Marketing on social media is generally helpful, but in this project it did not make a large difference.

Developing An Accurate Method And Algorithm To Identify And Match Tutors With Their Respective Students, According To Intellectual Level And Teaching Style, Vasanth Ramesh

2020 Intern Reports

Course Stars, LLC is a quality tutoring service focused on helping high school college students excel in specific college courses, or standardized tests, through the help of experienced tutors (who have taken those specialized courses before). The unique aspect of Course Stars is that our tutors are all specialized in their own college courses and have their strengths in specific standardized testing aspects. The focus of our business project for Course Stars is to create a method for analyzing and matching a specific student in need of tutoring with their respective tutor. This matchmaking will be based on the student’s …

Marketing With Sat Analysis, Aryan Gandhi '21

2020 Intern Reports

As an intern at Coursetars, I was introduced into the tutoring industry. I had never received or given tutoring before, unless it was my little sister, so it was very informative to see how these companies worked. One thing that I worked on which is standard amongst most tutoring companies is recruitment for tutors. Coursestars was trying to expand more into tutoring college students, and to do so, I reached out to contacts at UIUC to spread the word and put up fliers. From an industry standpoint, tutoring college students is one of the biggest markets out there, simply because …

Marketing Internship, Alejandro Carrillo '21

2020 Intern Reports

Qooley is a company focused on providing the best travel experience for tourists by connecting them with knowledgeable locals in the area they are visiting. The purpose of this business project was to help Qooley develop their marketing techniques and to increase the number of people that viewed their product. The business project included creating a pipeline of possible partners, finding out which categories are the most liked, creating social media content,and analyzing the Qooley website. Over the course of six months, the company provided portunities to gain experience in market research, website design, and composition, and how to connect …

Safestart: Simplifying Technology For Seniors, Savannah Pagan '20

2020 Intern Reports

Within our project, my partner and I aimed to fulfill the goal of simplifying technology usage for senior citizens. Seniors are often left behind in terms of technology, often because no one has taken the time to sit down with them and explain how to utilize their devices. There is a need to be technologically fit in today’s society, and by educating older generations on these topics, we can move them forward into this technological age. We went about addressing this problem by creating a series of interactive, informational videos that go over the basics of everyday technology, such as …

Using Social Media As A Marketing Tool For Scholarships, Brooke Bolsinger '21

2020 Intern Reports

Scholarship Assistance Fund is a nonprofit organization with the mission of supporting local students (Arlington Heights, Buffalo Grove, Mt. Prospect, Prospect Heights, and Wheeling) that aim to achieve a higher education. The focus of the business project involved a few different parts, primarily being social media management, but also included other graphic design projects, website management, and grant research. Throughout the six months of the internship program, Scholarship Assistance Fund began to utilize social media in their process of marketing to students, on top of their outreach to schools and printing of physical posters. Along with this, they began to …

Dealerfox Data Visualization, Zoe Berthold '21

2020 Intern Reports

Dealer Fox is a start-up that provides data visualization and consulting for advertisements of car dealerships online to help increase efficiency of sales. The business project was to streamline the process of data visualization, from collecting the data to presenting it using Infogram.

Business Project Final Report, Elasia Rodriguez '21

2020 Intern Reports

The STEM Pathways Project Team and I work with the Center for Innovation and Inquiry (IN2) on implementing the College and Career Pathway Endorsements program (CCPE)through the Post-Secondary Workforce Readiness Act (PWRA or PWR act). I am the lead intern, Elasia Rodriguez, and the rest of the project team consists of Gloria Wang, Jaelynn Abdullah,and Aryan Gandhi under the advisory of Betty Hart. The focus of the project is to assess IMSA’s courses and offerings and how they can assist students in college-readiness and prepare students for the future of work. The CCPE program is a planned high-school pathway that …

Wesolv: Business Project Final Report, Doreen Xiao '20

2020 Intern Reports

WeSolv is an innovative technology platform with a driven mission to advance equity in the career hiring field. WeSolv works with companies from Salesforce to Pinterest, to identify key skills companies prioritize for certain positions to create personalized Case Challenges for MBA students. These Case Challenges measure presentations, deliverables, and teamwork to see how students would actually perform in the job to ultimately reduce bias in the hiring process.

Venture Capital And Marketing With K8 Ventures, Simone-Nicole Angelov '21

2020 Intern Reports

I completed an internship with K8 Ventures, a Venture Builder Studio in Chicago. I had the opportunity to work on projects for K8 as well as P3rceive, one of their major portfolio companies. My time with the company has allowed me to learn about a variety of business procedures, techniques, and terminology, in addition to what it takes to develop a company.

Medical Billing Application Development Project, Ji Yoon Lee '20

2020 Intern Reports

The following report gives a detailed description of the internship carried out by Ji Yoon Lee throughout the duration of the 2019-2020 internship cohort at the Illinois Mathematics and Science Academy. The final product created, the process followed in order to create the product, as well as the research and methods are explained. The report documents the imitations and constraints encountered throughout the project creation and development duration. An inclusion of values, skills, and information resulting from the internship experience are detailed below as well as recommendations on how to improve the results for both the business and for future …

Broadskilling To Prepare Students For Future Work, Richard D. Busby

Publications & Research

Education professionals are concerned about quality of the education our youth receive. Corporations are concerned about having a prepared, skilled workforce as we face a sweeping digital transformation. Impact metrics vary, but there are clear themes about concerns of the emerging generation of workers (“will a robot take my job?”) and skills gaps. While corporate HR leans in on innovative recruiting, “upskilling” and “reskilling” initiatives, the opportunity for students is “Broadskilling” (i.e. career awareness, entrepreneurship, soft skills, adaptability, learning to learn, and befriending technology). Let’s engage in a practical discussion based on current data and share our experiences and stories.

2019 Annual Report, Imsa Fund

IMSA Fund Reports

No abstract provided.

Fy20 Community Day Presentation | Scholarship & Innovation: An Inquiry 2018-2019, José M. Torres, Kelly Page, Amber Stitziel Pareja, Jean Bigger, Richard Palmer, Lindsey Herlehy, Richard Schultz, Nadia Miskowiec

Scholarship & Innovation Committee

Presentation at Community Day | 8.14.2019

Fy19 Final Report | Scholarship & Innovation: An Inquiry 2018-2019, José M. Torres, Kelly Page, Amber Stitziel Pareja, Jean Bigger, Richard Palmer, Lindsey Herlehy, Richard Schultz, Nadia Miskowiec

Scholarship & Innovation Committee

The IMSA Scholarship and Innovation Committee was established in August, 2019 by Dr. José Torres based on report recommendations from Research Fellow, Dr. Page as a way to deepen a culture of scholarship, research and innovation across the IMSA community. The purpose of the committee is to create and communicate a shared vision, meaning and support for scholarship and innovation at IMSA, continuing its long tradition as a leading learning laboratory.

Managing Diverse Talent: Best Practices In Sourcing, Attracting, And Retaining Diverse Employees, Joseph Mastrocola

Publications & Research

This paper explores the importance of diversity in the workplace and how to create a more diverse workforce. It explores the competitive advantages associated with employing diverse talent and how that can translate to greater profits. It also looks at best practices in recruiting diverse employees, specifically where to find diverse talent and how to attract it. It also focuses on what efforts should be made to ensure the retention of diverse talent and how to foster an organizational culture that supports diversity and inclusion.

Nurturing The Talent Pipeline For An Emerging Global Workforce, Robert Hernandez, Richard D. Busby

Publications & Research

Passion. IMSA’s ability to produce thinkers and problem solvers doesn’t just breed pragmatists who know what it takes to be successful – it also gives students the chance to discover their passion. The more they try and the more they experience, the more they discover what they love. The chance to pursue passion means graduates have a greater sense of vision – and a greater chance of realizing their true potential.

IMSA teaches students to be global citizens in a diverse world. IMSA embraces diverse perspectives enriching understanding and the knowledge, attitudes, and skills required to function as …

Imsa360: Fall 2018, Imsa Fund

IMSA Fund Reports

Buoyed from the energy and success of hosting the 14th Annual International Student Science Fair (ISSF) this past summer and outside recognition by niche.com as the #1 Public High School, the 2018-2019 Academic year is moving at a robust pace.

Excerpt: From the President

01. Evolution Of Leadership, Illinois Mathematics And Science Academy

CORE

This module serves as an introduction to the academic study of leadership and leadership theory, encouraging students to dissect leadership concepts through an objective and subjective lenses. With a general understanding of how leadership has changed through time and how it is classified today, students can explore where they fit into the definition itself.

07. Gender In Leadership, Illinois Mathematics And Science Academy

CORE

This module encompasses the controversy and broadness of gender. Students begin with recognizing their subconscious gender biases, followed by a providing them with a vernacular of culture to help students better understand and differentiate terms. Then the students will explore the fluidity of gender through discussion on gender X and transgender. Furthermore, there will be an activity about the origin of gender roles, and how that shaped gender roles today. The students will also be able to apply their learnings to the real world by learning how to resolve conflict regarding gender and sexuality.

09. Group Dynamics, Illinois Mathematics And Science Academy

CORE

The Group Dynamics module focuses on informing students about inter/intra group interactions, while also demonstrating the role of an individual within a group. As individuals become a part of a group, they lose a certain distinction between their personal identity and their group personality, or prototype. Individuals become part of a social categorization and comparison, and require the skills of empathy and relations to successfully communicate with not only their ingroup, but also their outgroup. An absence of awareness of the feelings around them can develop the negative effects of groupthink, as individual ideas are unheard. As fitting into the …