The Customer Discovery Journey in STEM
Friday, May 10, 2024
> View the recording from this session here.
> Download the slide presentation here.
About this session: This webinar will provide participants with an overview of the Customer Discovery process, which is a key element of Innovation Boot Camp training. In addition, CCIC finalist teams will be tasked with a Customer Discovery assignment to complete in advance of attending the Innovation Boot Camp.
Note: The team mentor and student team members are required to attend the live webinars and/or view the webinar recordings if they are unable to attend the live events. AACC and NSF strongly encourage all team members to take part in the live webinars and/or view the recorded versions to ensure that teams are oriented to the Boot Camp, understand expectations for both Boot Camp participation and activities that need to be completed prior to attending, and have an opportunity to ask questions.
About the speakers:
Ellen Hause is the Associate Vice President, Academic and Student Affairs with the American Association of Community Colleges (AACC). She is the principal investigator (PI) on AACC’s Advanced Technological Education (ATE) grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF), and Co-PI on the NSF-funded Mentor-Connect project. Hause serves as the project director for AACC’s MentorLinks program, which provides mentoring and technical assistance to community colleges seeking to develop or strengthen STEM programs; and as lead of the national Community College Innovation Challenge (CCIC) designed to engage students in STEM innovation.
Grant M. Warner is the Executive Director of the Center for Black Entrepreneurship at Spelman College and Morehouse College. In addition, he is the Managing Partner of guru innovation group, LLC. Grant has experience as an innovation coach in the National Science Foundation (NSF) I-Corps program, which focuses on lab-to-market innovations across NSF’s portfolio, the National Institute of Health (NIH) I-Corps at NIH program which accelerates the growth of select NIH SBIR Phase I companies in devices, diagnostics, and therapeutics and Energy I-Corps which provides lean startup training for national laboratory researchers. Grant has also supported Lab-to-Market activities internationally via the Innovate Egypt, Innovate Ukraine, GIST-Senegal, and GIST-Macedonia programs. As an ardent Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion advocate he also managed programs and development for the National GEM Consortium and the Small Business Administration aimed at increasing access to federal funding. He received a B.S. degree from Cornell University, an M.S. degree from Penn State University, and a Ph.D. from Columbia University all in Mechanical Engineering.
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