#OneDayKC – The Hilltop Monitor

#OneDayKC innovates

Grace Webber — Sat, 16 Apr 2016 00:57:31 +0000

The second annual #OneDayKC was held Friday, April 8 in Kansas City, Mo. The event promotes entrepreneurship and innovation among students in an effort to better the Kansas City community. The day started out at the Kauffman Foundation, and the banquet at the end of the event was held in Arrupe Hall at Rockhurst University.

Students at #OneDayKC

In total, 60 students from 18 different high schools, colleges and universities attended, doubling the number from last year. Some of the schools that participated include William Jewell College, Rockhurst University, University of Missouri-Kansas City, Liberty North High School, Clemson University and Colorado School of Mines.

16 Jewell students attend #OneDayKC. Bradley Dice, senior physics, chemistry, mathematics and Applied Critical Thought and Inquiry (ACT-In) major; Trevor Nicks, senior biochemistry and ACT-In major; Macy Tush, junior physics and mathematics major; Alex Holden, junior economics, communication, philosophy and ACT-In major; and Ben Shinogle, senior English, political science and ACT-In major, were co-directors of the event.

“Organizing #OneDayKC was very time-consuming and it often included the other Fellows and I brewing coffee after 1:00 a.m. It was exciting to work with students from other schools, as well. Michael Brummett from Rockhurst University did some great work on organizing our mentors for the day, and Mike Frazzetta from Rockhurst and Tin Ho from UMKC were always willing to pitch in with whatever need to be done,” said Nicks.

University Innovation Fellows (UIF) also attended and held additional events Saturday, April 9.

Bradley Dice at #OneDayKC

“We hosted #OneDayKC as a part of our William Jewell University Innovation Fellows Meetup this year, so we invited 25 University Innovation Fellows from across the country to join us. We were able to share our experience in engaging diverse communities from higher education, local startups, city government and nonprofit organizations in order to build multilayered, interdisciplinary networks of thinkers and doers who are ready to build the city of our future,” said Dice.

Students were formed into teams that brainstormed projects that fell under six categories: energy and sustainability, transit and traffic, municipal services, health and well-being, education and workforce development and culture and recreation. The projects were judged by a panel that included Frank Jurden of TEDxKC, Tom Gerend of KC Streetcar, Lauren Krum from the Lean Lab and Dr. David Sallee, president of the College.

“The immediate goal/end-product of #OneDayKC is each team’s presentation, pitching their business or product idea to the #OneDayKC judges. However, the real purpose and product of #OneDayKC, in my opinion, is the inspiration, confidence, knowledge that we hopefully provided our participants,” said Nicks.

Projects were judged based on experiments and prototyping, evidence and pitch, creativity and impact and inclusion. The intent of this criteria was to have students not only create a project, but also present and explain why the idea is relevant and needed in the KC area.

Projects that were created included DROPLET: Clean, Cool, and Convenient Water Bottles; Literacy in KC: Improving 3rd grade reading ability; and Transverse Transit: Alternative Smart Commuting.

Cherith Parnell

“My team developed a program to address financial illiteracy called EKahn Academy. We created a virtual game to teach high school students about credit and a website that allows people to learn about finances on their own time through a series of webinars,” said Cherith Parnell, first-year Oxbridge institutional and policies and physics major.

The day was filled with numerous activities for the participants. There were five different speakers who spoke on topics such as the lean process and design thinking. Participants even spent part of the day on the Plaza talking with shoppers about the projects and asking for the shoppers’ take on them.

“In 12 hours, they had to learn the lean start up process, find a problem they were passionate about, fix the problem, test it on consumers and potentially see their idea torn down or need to be abandoned. It is grueling, and because it is so difficult, the students gain a very tangible pride in overcoming these steps and having a fantastic idea not in spite but because of this process,” said Shinogle.

#OneDayKC provides an opportunity for students to innovate, create and network with some of the best leaders and students in the Kansas City community and in an environment that is hands-on.

“More people should be involved with #OneDayKC because it is more than a conference, it is an experience. Rather than trading business cards or swapping emails, I was able to build professional relationships and connect with peers from around the country. Another edge that #OneDayKC has over other conferences is one achieves learning through information sessions and experience. I was able to learn about methods for brainstorming and creating a business, then apply that information the very same day at the conference,” said Parnell.

Photos by Chandler Eaton.

Jewell students innovate at #OneDayKC

Brianna Steiert — Fri, 08 May 2015 22:00:55 +0000

On Apr. 24, 2015, undergraduate and graduate students from around the Midwest came together for the 12-hour innovation workshop #OneDayKC.

Kansas City is experiencing many technological and infrastructural developments, including Cisco’s Smart City initiative, the KC Streetcar and Google Fiber. #OneDayKC organized students into groups and introduced them to civic challenges in the KC area, such as sustainability, transit, municipal services, healthcare, education, recreation and public spaces. Each team was responsible for creating a “big-picture” solution similar to those already being developed in KC to the problem of their choosing.

30 students from seven universities, including William Jewell College, Rockhurst University, UMKC, Missouri S&T, Kansas University, St. Louis University and Blue Valley CAPS, participated in #OneDayKC. William Jewell College was represented by six students: Macy Tush, first-year physics major, Kristen Agar, first-year accounting and interactive digital media major, Brianna Steiert, first-year Oxbridge molecular biology major, Alex Holden, sophomore international economics, communication, philosophy and ACT-In major, Kyle Ainge, sophomore international relations and political science major, and Trevor Nicks, junior biochemistry major.

“[I wanted] to learn about entrepreneurship and expand my network outside of the Jewell bubble,” said Tush.

Nicks found out about the event through fellow Jewell student Bradley Dice, junior physics, chemistry, mathematics and ACT-In major and wanted to participate because he is interested in entrepreneurial business.

The event was organized by Dice along with University of Missouri-KC student Zach Pettet and Rockhurst University student Sarah Jones. This group spent four months preparing for the innovation workshop. They had to reserve venues, recruit speakers, invite participants, find mentors and judges and decide how to fit it all into 12 hours.

“I worked as curriculum director for the day. I helped design our experiments and methods, put together resources to teach about new technology and organized a schedule that would keep participants engaged in the design process,” Dice said.

Several mentors with specialties in areas such as mobile technology, service design, architecture and urban planning contributed their knowledge to the event and its participants.The day began at the UMKC Regnier Institute for Entrepreneurship and Innovation with multiple presentations from distinguished guests, including Jewell Director of Creativity and Innovation Landon Young.

Students were then given time to work on and develop their projects at Think Big Partners and Spring Accelerator, businesses dedicated to helping entrepreneurs.

The day ended at Union Station with all the teams pitching their ideas to a panel of judges. The judges included Chancellor Leo Morton of UMKC; Tom Gerend, executive director of the KC Streetcar Authority; Diana Kander, best-selling author; Sam Meers of Meers Advertising and Bob Regnier, founder of Blue Valley Bank.

Ideas were judged on three criteria: experiments & evidence, concept & creativity and impact & inclusion. The panel was looking for something new, well-thought out and feasible.

The winner of the #OneDayKC was given the opportunity to attend GigHacks May 1-3 in KC to see their idea come to life. The winning team is also being given a spot at One Million Cups to pitch its idea in front of investors who could potentially invest in the idea.

The winning team, which included Jewell students Ainge and Steiert, along with four other students from various universities, pitched “Bopp,” a crowd-sourcing method for streetcar users to find trending places in real time. This project would work with the KC streetcar authority to incorporate the already planned kiosks at all streetcar stops. The app would allow visitors and natives to find the most “boppin” places.

“At a surface level, I gained an insight of the entrepreneurial world. But moreover, I gained an insight as to how some people see the world as an oyster, where others see nothing, which allowed me the time to appreciate the ingenuity of people with purposeful actions,” said Ainge.

The runner-up idea was “Flash Foods,” a mobile farmers market.

“It’s a platform that would allow farmers to connect with those living in food deserts,” said Tush.

Farmers would be able to post about their leftover food and meet up with citizens living in food deserts, providing them with access to fresh food. Other projects included “Walkcom,” a smart sidewalk; “Park Shark,” an app to help relieve the frustrations of parking through GPS and smart sensors; “2AM,” a service to help people get home safely at night if they lose their phone and “KC Air,” smart sensors assisting in the follow-through of 311 reports.

“[Walkcom is] a solar powered sidewalk that would enable data collection through pressure sensors, while simultaneously interacting with pedestrians through a LED display,” said Nicks, who worked on the project.

In 12 hours, students learned to work with a team to launch an idea to shape the future of KC.

“The whole day was great, but in general, I just enjoyed meeting new people and networking,” said Nicks.

Dice, Jones and Pettet made sure the day was not all work and no play by hosting entertaining, engaging speakers, switching up the location frequently, allowing students to interview the public and providing lots of free food.

“[My favorite part was] Bradley Dice’s sick cover of ‘Ice Ice Baby,’” said Tush.

Two members from the “Bopp” team, as well as Dice, Jones and Pettet, attended GigHacks and were able to start the development of “Bopp.” The team plans to pitch its idea at One Million Cups May 13th.