NEWPATH: IT Entrepreneurship Program for Computing Students

NEWPATH News

• Information Session, Nov. 17, 2011: An information session about the NEWPATH program will be held on November, 2011 in DL 480 at 5:30 pm for students interested in the program.
  

• Information Session, Oct. 12, 2010: An information session about the NEWPATH program will be held on October 12, 2010 in DL 480 at 5:30 pm for students interested in the program.
  Update: Twelve students and four NEWPATH faculty, the program's evaluator, Kathleen Carr (and her assistant, Darby Schaff), and Peg Steele, the CSE Dept's Undergrad Advisor, attended the meeting. The meeting was interesting with a lot of questions/comments from the students. The students who wish to join the program will complete an application by Oct. 20 and submit it to Peg.
• Information Session, Oct. 7, 2009: An information session about the NEWPATH program will be held on October 7 in DL 480 at 5:30 pm for students interested in the program.

• Interesting competition (entry deadline: 1/13/'09): The Fisher College of Business is inviting students interested in entrepreneurship to enter a competition with a chance to win substantial money to help fund a startup. For details, please see here.

• Information Session, Oct. 1, 2008: An information session about the NEWPATH program will be held on Oct. 1. Students who are likely to be interested in the program and are likely to be qualified have been contacted by e-mail. If you have not received such an e-mail and wish to consider joining NEWPATH, please contact Prof. Bruce Weide (weide AT cse).

• Regular weekly NEWPATH meetings scheduled (Au '08): All NEWPATH students and (several of the) faculty will meet weekly on Fridays at 3:30 pm. The meetings will be in CC 209. The first meeting will be on 9/26; this will be mainly an organizational and "welcome back" meeting.
  Later meetings will be devoted to presentations by local IT entrepreneurs, students reporting on their internship/entrepreneurial experiences, and by faculty on a range of topics. Students will also present based on readings of appropriate books and papers on entrepreneurial topics.
  If you are a NEWPATH student and have not yet registered for the course, you should do so (unless you have a time conflict with another course). The call numbers for the CSE 693 is 04502-1 and for the ECE 293 is 10702-3. For complete details of the purpose of this "course", please see below under "NEWPATH Curriculum".

• Important local IT-entrepreneurship event (Su '08): The startup weekend, an event where a number of aspiring tech entrepreneurs, business owners, attorneys, designers, Web engineers and other business consultants came together for an intensive workshop was hosted by TechColumbus on July 18-20. For full details, see http://columbus.startupweekend.com/ and http://www.techcolumbus.org/en/art/?1098.
• Important note for international students:: If you are an international student on an F-1 visa, it is important that you understand the INS requirements concerning internships etc. before you start your internship. Otherwise, you run the risk of violating the terms of your visa which can have serious consequences for your continued stay at OSU. If you are such a student, please make sure to read this summary information. You should also check with the Office of International Affairs (contact information in the summary information page).]

• NEWPATH Curriculum (Sp '08): At the last meeting (on March 27), one of the important questions that came up was, how do we ensure that NEWPATH students continue to pay attention to entrepreneurial issues and don't just focus on whatever regular courses they are currently taking? Based on the discussion at the meeting and further e-mail discussions, the NEWPATH team has decided to adopt the following approach:
  • Each quarter, starting with Au '08, we will offer a "course" that will essentially consist of guest speakers and presentations by the students (on interesting technology-related or entrepreneurship-related topics). The course will meet once a week, on Friday afternoons (starting at 3:30), for about an hour-and-half.

    All NEWPATH students will be required to take this course. This course will be considered an "independent study" course (number: 693) with the individual student's major advisor. Each quarter (exept Summer), students in their sophomore or junior years will register for 1 credit hour each for the course. NEWPATH students who are CIS and CSE majors may, if they wish to do so, use upto two credit hours of this course as part of their technical electives; ECE majors should consult with their advisor. Students in their senior year will also be required to participate in the course. But they will not register for the 693. Instead, participation will be a required part of the 4th-year "e-practicum". Thus all students will participate in the course in their sophomore, junior, and senior years; this should help develop their entrepreneurship skills and also enable them to develop awareness of promising new technologies.

    Freshmen students in NEWPATH will also be required to take this course. Although they may not be able to (and will not be required to) make presentations etc., they will benefit from listening to industry experts and will be able to learn from the experiences of the senior students by interacting with them.

• Course of possible interest to NEWPATH students: A course titled, "From Great Ideas to Great Products: Case Studies" offered by the College of Engineering (taught by Dr. Phil Schlosser) may be of interest to NEWPATH students. The next offering of the course is expected to be in Au '08.

• Talks by entrepreneurs (Sp '08): Dr. Camp announced at the meeting of 3/27 that NEWPATH students are welcome to attend talks by local entreprenuers scheduled as part of his BUS MHR 390 class this quarter. The talks are in Room 105 Schoenbaum Hall at 12:30 on Thursdays. The following talks have been currently scheduled:
  • April 10: "Positioning great ideas: execution of a plan"; speaker: Cameron Mitchell.
  • May 8: "Pitching your big idea"; speaker: Carey Jenkins.
  • May 22: "There's gold in the brand": speaker: Charles Penzone.
  If you plan to attend any of the talks, please e-mail a brief note to that effect to Dr. Camp (camp.1@osu.edu).

• Spring Quarter Meeting, March 27: Spring quarter's meeting of NEWPATH students and faculty will be on Thursday, March 27, 2008, at 5pm - 6:30pm in DL 263. Pizza and pop will be served. Hope everyone is able to attend.

• Interesting news item (Mar. 18, '08): Columbus ranked number 1 "hotbed of tomorrow's technology".

• Internship applications: Internship applications forms are now available (.doc) (.pdf). The completed applications should be submitted to Prof. Lee no later than March 15.

• Winter '08 Quarter Meeting, Feb. 7: Winter quarter's meeting of NEWPATH students and faculty will be on Thursday, Feb. 7, at 4pm - 6pm in DL 263. Pizza and pop will be served. Hope everyone is able to attend.

• Information Session, Jan. 15, '08: The first information session about the NEWPATH program was held on Jan. 15. About 30 students attended the session. Just over 50% of those who attended the session have since applied for and been admitted to the program.