We need up to 35 KSU STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math) and/or Business faculty, staff, or students who will represent KSU and be discussion leaders and table mentors at the NEOhio Innovates Commercialization & Entrepreneurship Forum for Northeast Ohio high school students. All discussion leaders will receive lunch and a $25 gift card.

The Forum will start with a Believe in Ohio “Are You Ready” video kickoff, followed by 4 of KSU’s dynamic applied STEM faculty who will discuss the cutting-edge, entrepreneurial, applied STEM research and activities that they are each doing (each presentation will be about 15 minutes in length, plus 5 minutes for questions from the students).

Attending high school students will be seated at round tables of 8-10, with an KSU table mentor at each table who will serve as a table host and engage the attending students in discussion.

After the speakers present and lunch, the students at each table, led by their table mentor, will spend +/- 25 minutes brainstorming a potential new innovation that they imagine might arise from the applied STEM presentations that they heard.  Students, led by their table mentor, will utilize NE Ohio Innovates’ “Roadmap to Future Jobs & Prosperity” as a critical thinking tool in the brainstorming process.  At the conclusion of the brainstorming session, a student from each table will be given 60 seconds to “pitch” their team’s idea to the assembled students.

Although KSU table mentors are invited to attend the entire Forum (9:30am to 1:00pm), at a minimum to participate they must be on site by 10:30am and remain until 1:00pm.

When KSU Mentors arrive at or before 10:30am, they will receive about 15 minutes of training on how to use the NE Ohio Innovates “Roadmap to Future Jobs and Prosperity”.

Contact LaunchNET Advisor Lynn Buchinky at lbuchins@kent.edu