Entrepreneurial and Small Business Operations Commons^™

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 …

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.

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 …

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 …

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.

Impact Report 2018: Equity And Excellence, Illinois Mathematics And Science Academy

Impact Reports

For over 30 years, the Illinois Mathematics and Science Academy (IMSA) has pioneered the future of science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) education through its two legislative charges: 1) to provide a uniquely challenging education for students talented in the areas of mathematics and science; and 2) to stimulate further excellence for all Illinois schools in mathematics and science. IMSA champions these goals through:

• Residential education: Helping talented 10th-12th graders representing over 93% of Illinois counties to date reach their fullest potential.
• Student and educator outreach: Leading the charge to continually innovate K-12 STEM education, creating a strong and diverse …

Impact Report 2017: Imsa30, The Promise And Power Of Imsa, Illinois Mathematics And Science Academy

Impact Reports

The State of Illinois launched the Illinois Mathematics and Science Academy (IMSA), which is recognized as the world's leading teaching and learning lab for imagination and inquiry, in collaboration with business, education, and science leaders. For 30 years, IMSA has pioneered the future of science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) education through its two legislative charges: 1) to provide a uniquely challenging education for students talented in the areas of mathematics and science and 2) to stimulate further excellence for all Illinois schools in mathematics and science. IMSA champions these goals through:

New STEM teaching models: leading the charge to …

Moving Education In2 The Future: Creating The Next Generation Of Innovators, Lawrence Bergie, Britta W. Mckenna

Publications & Research

What started as planning for the next generation of inquiry-based learning led to an entirely new center for innovation and entrepreneurship! Hear how this innovative idea moved to the design of a physical innovation hub and see how IMSA has transformed a former computer lab IN2 a working prototype of their future space.

Dive into the many aspects of creating innovation spaces: design process, STEM foundation and entrepreneurship cornerstone, Makerspace development through a student leadership and service initiative, collaboration potential with community partners and local/regional business entities, student inquiry and research potential and the ability to showcase area emerging technology …

Give Up, Catch Up, Or Keep Up With Innovation? An Educator's Dilemma, Britta W. Mckenna

Publications & Research

Don't look now, but your students want more than the three R's for their school experience. Innovation, technology, entrepreneurship and the Maker Movement are changing what our students want to do and be in the future beyond what we can imagine today. Schools and teachers need to figure out how to respond to the DIY generation of makers emerging and be prepared to reshape education. In an information-rich age of smart phones, online learning, coding, gamification, apps, Internet of Things and digital badges, are today's schools ready for tomorrow's students?

The Value Of Creating An Innovation Talent Pipeline, Britta Mckenna

Publications & Research

Investing in the innovation pipeline today translates to Illinois business tomorrow. Somewhere between the rise of “STEM” and “staying globally competitive” in a time after Millennials is Generation Z. Gen Z digital natives are now making their way to and through primary and secondary education and we need to be ready to nurture the emerging talents of these and other future innovators. This is particularly important in Illinois where developing – and retaining – top talent will be a key driver of the state’s knowledge-based economy. There is hard work ahead reimagining what education should look like to support this …

The Need For Irrational Entrepreneurship, Sam Yagan '95

IMSA Great Minds Program ®

Join Sam Yagan for this engaging exploration of irrationality and entrepreneurship. Sam is a serial entrepreneur, co-founder of Excelerate Labs at 1871 and the newly-appointed CEO of Match.com.