entrepreneurship

Commonwealth Cyber Initiative (CCI)

Cybersecurity faculty teams pitch startup ideas at Commonwealth Cyber Initiative competition

Teresa Donnellan — Fri, 11 Oct 2024 17:11:08 +0000

Cybersecurity faculty teams pitch startup ideas at Commonwealth Cyber Initiative competition Teresa Donnellan Fri, 10/11/2024 - 13:11

In This Story

Liza Wilson Durant

Andre Marshall, PhD

On October 9, 2024, the Commonwealth Cyber Initiative’s Northern Virginia Node accelerator program (CCI+A) culminated in a final pitch competition in front of a panel of cybersecurity industry experts and entrepreneurs at Mason Square. Program participants, cybersecurity engineering academics from throughout the Commonwealth of Virginia, spent the past few months bringing their ideas for businesses to life.

The program helped participants connect with mentors, identify funding and how to obtain it, investigate their target customer, further develop their minimum viable product and hone their elevator pitch. CCI Northern Virginia Node Director Liza Wilson Durant, who welcomed event attendees, encouraged participants to change their perspective from faculty member explaining the technical basis for their idea, to end user who is trying to understand the problem it will solve.

CCI+A 2024 participants and advisors. Photo by Teresa Donnellan.

Each of the eight 2024 faculty teams presented a pitch and received insights on the industry and investment landscapes from the esteemed judging panel. The panel included Jennifer Addie, chief operating officer of Mach37 Cyber Accelerator and VentureScope; Maria Swainson, a managing vice president at Gartner and a member of Citrine Angels, an investment group; Maurice Boissiere, chief customer officer at DataTribe; and, Alicia Lynch, chief information security officer at TD Synnex. Jamil Jaffer, founder and executive director of the National Security Institute at the Antonin Scalia Law School at George Mason and venture partner with Paladin Capital Group moderated the panel.

Faculty team products included everything from hardware to protect a person’s identity to encryption software. CyberGuard AI, led by Old Dominion University’s Peter Foytick; PrivacyGuard, led by Old Dominion’s Rui Ning; CyberSeQurity, led by ��AV's Weiwen Jiang; EngineeRD Solutions, led by George Mason’s Brian Ngac; MedChai, led by William & Mary’s Ran Yang; Continuous and Lightweight Authentication for Wearable and Portable Systems (CLAWS), led by George Mason’s Sai Manoj Pudukotai Dinakarrao; RADAR - Real-time Anomaly Detection with Edge AI Hardware, led by Virginia Commonwealth University’s Jayasimha Atulasimhal; and, Machine Learning Operations Executed in an Encrypted Environment (MOXIE), led by Old Dominion scientists all presented pitches.

Robert Podswadt pitches MOXIE to a panel of cybersecurity industry expert. Photo by Teresa Donnellan.

Robert Podswadt, the development lead for MOXIE, made the winning pitch. His teammates include John Matter and Daniel Takabi. The panel praised Podswadt’s clarity, particularly his use of simple graphics to explain MOXIE, a proposed homomorphic computing encryption service.

“We’re leveraging our vibrant entrepreneurial ecosystem, and we’re leveraging our deep pool of cybersecurity talent here in Northern Virginia,” said Vice President for Research, Innovation, and Economic Impact at ��AV Andre Marshall, who spoke at the event. He added that CCI was “a visionary initiative by the state of Virginia” whereby more than 40 academic units are working together to foster cybersecurity research and workforce development in Virginia.

Topics

Cybersecurity

Innovation Commercialization Assistance Program

Campus News

Mason Square

CEC high impact stories

George Mason’s startup incubator puts CEO on path to developing accessible electronic health care records

Sarah Holland — Mon, 15 Jul 2024 19:23:15 +0000

George Mason’s startup incubator puts CEO on path to developing accessible electronic health care records Sarah Holland Mon, 07/15/2024 - 15:23

Jourdan Saunders is a licensed speech-language pathologist and CEO of The Resource Key, which she founded to assist organizations in developing accessible marketing solutions for people with disabilities and facilitate compliance with regulations related to accessibility.

Saunders met Toni Andrews, senior associate director, Community and Local Government Relations at ��AV's Mason Square, via the Arlington Chamber of Commerce’s Education and Workforce Development Committee, who connected Saunders with Paula Sorrell, associate vice president, innovation and economic development, Mason Enterprise.

Sorrell suggested that Saunders participate in the Innovation Commercialization Assistance Program (ICAP), which helps Virginia’s inventors and entrepreneurs take the right steps in bringing new technologies and innovations to market. ICAP is part of Virginia’s Small Business Development Centers at George Mason and one of the many entrepreneurship programs offered at the university.

Jourdan Saunders. Photo provided

Saunders’ clinical experience exposed her to the need for industrial accessibility services. “As my clients transitioned into the workforce, there weren’t many opportunities due to a lack of accessibility and the perception that disabled people aren’t capable of working certain jobs.”

When Saunders met with Sorrell, they discussed the founding of her company and its next phase of growth—the development of a health care platform that would increase accessibility to electronic health records.

ICAP participants complete five three-hour sessions centered on customer discovery, conduct at least 20 customer discovery interviews, complete supplemental assignments, and meet with dedicated mentors.

Mentorship is a key component of ICAP. Each participant is paired with a dedicated mentor who provides feedback on each discovery interview, shares insight as an entrepreneur, and introduces mentees to connections that align with their goals.

“I’m grateful to have been introduced to ICAP,” Saunders said. “Having a dedicated mentor provide specific and actionable feedback following customer discovery interviews was very helpful.”

Program participants are also vital to network expansion. “Networking with my fellow cohort members expanded my reach,” Saunders said. “Many of my clients are in different states. However, through ICAP, I’ve made local connections that I can leverage as I grow my business.”

Once participants complete ICAP, they continue to have access to resources. The ICAP team stays engaged as a company progresses through its milestones, becoming a later-stage startup and eventually transitioning from a startup to a growth company and the unique needs this entails.

Since completing ICAP, Saunders has attended an industry conference and expanded her network. She expects to have a prototype of the accessible health care application ready for beta testing within the next six months.

“ICAP’s focus on customer discovery, mentorship, and resources are invaluable benefits for entrepreneurs,” Saunders said. “You become part of a community, an ecosystem, that’s continuous.”

George Mason’s Small Business Development Centers offer ICAP free of charge as part of the Mason Virginia Promise, a pathway to a bachelor's degree or help starting a business for any Virginian who wants one.

Mason Enterprise Center is the place for innovation

In This Story

Paula Sorrell

Topics

Research

Mason Square

Small Business Development Center

Economic Development

Strategic Direction

Photography entrepreneurs continue to grow businesses while studying marketing

Greg Johnson — Wed, 26 Jun 2024 14:18:18 +0000

Photography entrepreneurs continue to grow businesses while studying marketing Greg Johnson Wed, 06/26/2024 - 10:18

Many students graduate from the Costello College of Business at ��AV with bold plans to start their own companies. Bethany Rivera and Alex Tugbang, both undergraduate marketing students and classmates in Jiyeon Hong’s marketing course, had already launched their respective businesses, Rivera’s Photography and Photuggraphy, prior to enrolling.

“In my digital marketing course, I’m trying my best to keep my materials up to date and focus on skills and lessons of practical value, offering many opportunities for students to apply what they learn in class to real-world scenarios,” says Hong. “This is because the digital world is constantly changing, and I believe the best learning can come from hands-on experience.” Focused on their career ambitions and passions, Rivera and Tugbang knew what they wanted to learn more about to become even more successful entrepreneurs.

Bethany Rivera

Her family and friends knew it was only a matter of time until Bethany Rivera became an avid photographer. “Ever since I was born, I was surrounded with cameras and pictures,” she says. She fondly recalls her father giving her a Canon camera when she was 12 years old, but it wasn’t until high school that she realized she could make a living with it. She had taken a picture at a pep rally and sent it to her English teacher, who also taught the yearbook class. They selected the photo to use on the cover, and Rivera quickly became involved with working on the yearbook.

Since officially launching her business in 2021, she has steadily grown her clientele from people she knows in the local Hispanic community. In addition, many of her clients are of Indian background, connections stemming from befriending the owner of an Indian restaurant.

Alex Tugbang

Alex Tugbang’s passion for photography began more recently. Inspired by videos he watched on YouTube, he decided to bring a camera with him on a family vacation to Hawaii in 2016. At first, he wasn’t happy with how his pictures were turning out, but he continued to practice and teach himself until they got better and better.

“When I was in Hawaii, there was this crazy moment when the concierge sat me down and asked me if I made money off photography, and he walked me through how to open a business,” he says.

Shortly after the trip, he started doing photo shoots for friends performing activities like dance. As his content was put out there, dance studios began to contact him. As a graduate of Bishop Ireton High School, he became friends with the bishop who recommended him to several other churches in the area for projects. And so, his client network grew rapidly, all while being a self-taught photographer and videographer.

Both Rivera and Tugbang find their current coursework, especially Jiyeon Hong’s course, immensely helpful in growing professionally. “She doesn’t know this, but every time she’s teaching something I always make the changes on my website,” says Rivera. “Like when she was talking about SEO and how to optimize your SEO and everything, I was on my website making those changes in real time.” One of the course’s projects that Tugbang finds particularly helpful is analyzing a company’s website and social media presence to make recommendations. In fact, it’s something he finds himself doing often for his business. “For example, this dental company reached out to me, and I could see they didn’t even have a website and needed this and that,” he says. With an analytical eye and a strong marketing skillset, he can help clients reach their goals. “I’m very proud of my students who are pursuing their entrepreneurial spirits while managing their academic responsibilities,” says Hong. “I wish them all the best for the continued growth of their businesses.”

Rivera is already doing professionally what she’s always wanted to do. Now her goals are just bigger and more ambitious. In addition to photography and marketing, she finds much to love about being an entrepreneur. “Before I started my business, I was a homebody who didn’t go too far unless it was with family or friends,” she says. “Now that I have clients in different locations, I get to see different locations I wasn’t aware about, and I get to connect with different people from different cultures.” The sky is the limit for Tugbang’s business as well. “I definitely want to keep focusing on my business,” he says. “It allows me to grow myself and grow the community as well because there’s other photographers I’m helping, and they help me with my own projects as well.” With ever-expanding client networks and skillsets, Bethany Rivera and Alex Tugbang are excited to continue growing their businesses to new heights.

Topics

Costello College of Business Students

Marketing Area

Systems Engineering and Operations Research

Learn more about the Marketing Area's Academic Programs

In This Story

Jiyeon Hong

Blimps and business collide at the Mason Innovation Exchange

Sarah Holland — Fri, 24 May 2024 15:01:55 +0000

Blimps and business collide at the Mason Innovation Exchange Sarah Holland Fri, 05/24/2024 - 11:01

Building a drone and building a business are, at first glance, two very different tasks. Academically, you’d be hard pressed to find a robotics course in a business school, and vice versa. But at the Mason Innovation Exchange (MIX), all that separates these two is a staircase.

From the fabrication floor to the incubator’s loft, the MIX is demonstrating how principles of entrepreneurship and innovation aren’t so easily siloed with two new courses: BLIMP and Student Innovator Mastermind.

The MIX BLIMP workshop was an outgrowth of an Office of Naval Research-funded Bio-inspired Lighter-than-air Instructional Mechatronics Program, developed to expand unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV)—or drone—education, with a desire to build a pipeline for students to participate in the biannual Defend the Republic lighter-than-air robotics competition. In this course, students learn introductory concepts of UAVs and, within small interdisciplinary groups, build their own blimps with flapping wing mechanisms.

Daigo Shishika helps students flight test their blimps in the Mason Autonomy and Robotics Center (MARC). Photo by Evan Cantwell/Office of University Branding

“We use organic life as the inspiration for these builds,” said instructor Daigo Shishika, assistant professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering. “Students study the biomechanics of fish, insects, and birds, and then use those principles of flight and motion to create their own blimps.”

Each group learns how to build, program, and control flying robots. Using balloons made of mylar films, the students construct the blimp bodies and mount the electronic components—circuitry, motors, and microcontrollers—while ensuring that the blimp is well balanced.

At the end of the course, groups present their design and describe what creatures inspired their works: butterflies, stingrays, tuna, and even dragons were referenced when building.

“This process is meant to be exploratory,” explained Shishika. “I didn’t want to discourage the groups from trying out-of-the-box ideas. The dragon, for example: I wasn’t confident it would work. But they proved me wrong, and demonstrated some technical benefits of that type of wing.”

“As much as we’re teaching them the basics,” Shishika continued, “they’re teaching us new ways of thinking about design and fabrication.”

Along with the microcredential the students earn upon completion of the course, Shishika hopes they leave with a better sense of creative design and confidence in their ability to design, develop, and deploy robotics.

“It’s fun to build something from scratch and see it fly,” he said.

BLIMP flight testing in the MARC aviary. Photo by Evan Cantwell/Office of University Branding

The Student Innovator Mastermind course uses a similar approach: building foundations while allowing space for creativity and innovation. George Mason alum Lisa Shapiro, BA Psychology ’03, Med ’06, is a seasoned business owner and entrepreneur. When she started at Mason as the MIX’s assistant director of entrepreneurship programs, the entrepreneurship incubator on the MIX’s second floor was empty.

“I wanted to reinvigorate the space and provide student innovators with a place to share ideas, develop their businesses, and form a community with other entrepreneurs,” she said.

The Student Innovator Mastermind program is a six-week mastermind group where 10 Mason student innovators and business founders gather for peer-to-peer collaboration and workshops. The inaugural mastermind cohort included students developing video games, a skincare line, mobile applications, and a business that supports the elderly population with nutritional needs—which was one of the finalists in the 2024 Patriot Pitch competition.

A key part of the programming was what Shapiro calls “transformational talks”: presentations from industry professionals that the students can immediately apply to their work. Speakers cover topics such as mindset, marketing and branding, goal setting, customer segment, and advice for business ownership.

“Being able to take what they’ve learned and immediately apply it is super important,” said Shapiro. “Entrepreneurship is super hard. You need the right mindset to be able to handle the ups and downs. I want to get them started off in the right way so they’re better prepared.”

The incubator is also a space for the students to learn from each other. Sharing ideas and challenges is, Shapiro said, a necessary part of the process. “We’ve had a phenomenal response from the students,” she said. “They’re helping each other, recommending professors and other people to meet that could help with their ideas.”

Honors College student Sahil Jagtap, who is majoring in computer science, participated in the Mastermind and the drone-prototyping programs this semester. “I have a passion for building, making, and breaking stuff. I love doing research on new and unique technologies and their potential to solve real-world problems,” he said.

The course offerings at the MIX were an opportunity for Jagtap to get hands-on experience in developing and launching tech-based solutions. “The skills I acquired from both programs, such as project management, teamwork, and technical expertise, are invaluable,” he said. “In addition, the mentorship and networking opportunities have connected me with industry professionals and potential collaborators, which will be beneficial as I continue my career in technology and entrepreneurship.”

Most of all, Shapiro and Shishika both hope that this type of programming keeps students coming back to the MIX.

“Now that they’ve had a taste of the full process,” Shishika said, “they can focus on the aspect they enjoyed the most and dig deeper, whether that’s robotics, electronics, fabrication, or something else.”

“The MIX is a space for prototyping,” Shapiro said. “It’s a place for anyone with an idea to come and try to make it a reality.”

Photo by Evan Cantwell/Office of University Branding

Create and innovate at The MIX

In This Story

Daigo Shishika

Students win contests designing delivery drones that respond to real-time wind change

Nathan Kahl — Wed, 08 May 2024 13:09:04 +0000

Students win contests designing delivery drones that respond to real-time wind change Nathan Kahl Wed, 05/08/2024 - 09:09

Part of the charm of tiny Tangier Island, located smack dab in the middle of the Chesapeake Bay, is that in some ways it seems stuck in time, with residents speaking an outdated dialect and relying on crabbing for a living. What isn’t so endearing to residents about their simple life is the need to take a ferry to the Eastern Shore to obtain necessities, such prescription medications. Such a trip is an all-day affair, often causing people to miss work and lose wages.

But now Riverside Health System and DroneUp, a delivery service based in Virginia Beach, are working with a team of ��AV students to deliver medications via a small drone. But even that poses challenges.

“As a part of my systems engineering senior design project, my team and I performed a context analysis and a stakeholder analysis to find the performance gaps for a case study about drone delivery to an island located in the Chesapeake Bay–Tangier Island,” said senior Diana Machuca, who is majoring in systems and industrial engineering. “To bridge the gaps, we designed the Drone Range Dynamic System and came up with a business plan for the project.”

“The route is 15 nautical miles (NM) from Onley, Virginia, to Tangier Island,” said team member Darius Jack. “The route traverses both land and terrain resulting in significant wind shifts, including onshore and offshore winds, depending on the time of day.”

Depending on a drone’s design, it can be very sensitive to wind, requiring extensive analysis. Team member Grean Ramos said, “We developed an aerodynamic simulation of the drone and its batteries. The simulation showed that the 15 NM route is close to the drone's range limit. Any unexpected headwind could result in the drone running out of battery and needing to land before reaching Tangier Island.”

“There are weather stations at Onley and at Tangier Island airports, but no weather stations in-between," said team member Diana Machuca. "We analyzed one year of hourly wind data from the airports and found that headwinds would prevent the drone from reaching the clinic 32 percent of the time.”

Team members Gurkirt Tahim, Darius Jack, Grean Ramon, and Diana Machuca

So the team developed a Drone Range Decision-support System (DRDS). The DRDS uses the aerodynamic simulation described above to continuously monitor the range-remaining as the drone flies. If the simulation estimates that the drone has experienced an unexpected wind and will no longer have enough battery power to reach the destination, it recommends the drone operator to return home (if it can) or to land safely in designated landing zones. Simulations showed winds would require the drone to return home 17 percent of the time.

The team’s plan won First Place in the STEM Track in the Patriot Pitch Competition, a annual contest sponsored by the Costello College of Business at George Mason, and First Place in the Systems and Analytics Track at the Sage Memorial Design Competition, a student-focused international forum for the design of complex systems.

“Working on this project was an amazing experience,” said Jack. “We had to use all the system engineering knowledge and skills we learned over the past three years. Building systems in the real-world is hard, but perseverance and creativity pay off.”

Topics

Drones

aeronautics

Patriot Pitch Competition

Winning teams are selected at the annual Patriot Pitch Competition

Greg Johnson — Thu, 18 Apr 2024 19:21:12 +0000

Winning teams are selected at the annual Patriot Pitch Competition Greg Johnson Thu, 04/18/2024 - 15:21

Led by the Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship (CIE) within the Costello College of Business at ��AV, the Patriot Pitch Competition supports early-stage business ventures and ideas from Mason students and recent alumni. On April 11, the finalists made their final pitches on the Fairfax Campus.

Patrick Soleymani

Before the finals commenced, 16 semifinalist teams, their mentors, and 16 semifinalist judges participated in the semifinal round via Zoom, providing them the chance to develop the skillset to pitch their ideas virtually to stakeholders. These semifinalists represented six colleges and schools from across Mason, including College of Engineering and Computing, Schar School of Policy and Government, College of Education and Human Development, College of Humanities and Social Sciences, College of Science, and the Costello College of Business.

After narrowing down the field to eight finalists, two teams in each competition track, the Johnson Center Bistro filled with spectators to watch and vote on the final pitches. In addition to earning $6,000 for first place and $3,000 for second place in each track, teams were eligible to be voted as Mason’s Choice Awardees by the audience members, receiving another $1,000 for each track. The tracks were Public Engagement, STEM, Social Impact, and General Entrepreneurship.

Seth Goldman and Ali Aldubaisi '21

Emceed by Patrick Soleymani, associate dean of outreach and strategic engagement at the Costello College of Business, the competition was proceeded by a keynote discussion with Seth Goldman, co-founder of Eat the Change, Just Ice Tea, and Honest Tea; and recent Mason alumnus entrepreneur Ali Aldubaisi, BS Neuroscience ’21. Aldubaisi asked Goldman about his challenges and triumphs as an entrepreneur, setting the stage perfectly for the next generation of entrepreneurs ready to make their pitches.

Each finalist team was given five minutes to make their pitch, followed by five minutes of answering questions from the panel of judges. The panels of finalist judges comprised Mason stakeholders, faculty, alumni, and other successful entrepreneurs, who were experts in the given competition track.

In all four tracks, the first-place winner was also voted the Mason’s Choice Award Prize winner, awarding each team a total of $7,000. For the Public Engagement Track, UR2CLOSE was selected as the top pick for their following distance indicator to be mounted on the rear license plate of a car to prevent rear-end collisions.

In the STEM Track, FlightCommand Pro was selected as the first-place winner. FlightCommand Pro’s mission is to provide better products and systems for drone operations, including drone deliveries flying with more certainty when beyond the visual line of sight. “As a part of my systems engineering senior design project, my team and I performed a context analysis and a stakeholder analysis to find the performance gaps for a case study about drone delivery to an island located in the Chesapeake Bay – Tangier Island,” says Diana Machuca, a senior studying systems and industrial engineering. “To bridge the gaps, we designed the Drone Range Dynamic System and came up with a business plan for the project.” Mason alumnus Scott Hine, BS Decision Science ’85, mentored the team, advising them to emphasize the humanitarian aspects of the product to appeal to people’s hearts. The team is looking forward to using their winnings to test their system using a real drone.

Project Hope, established by Naila Ahsan, a senior studying management and entrepreneurship, and Rakibul Alam, a junior studying management and marketing, was chosen as the top pitch in the Social Impact Track. In Bangladesh, where 85% of the menstruating population cannot afford the necessary menstruating products, Project Hope endeavors to furnish annual provisions of safe, sustainable, and reusable sanitary napkins to those most in need. “In 2016, I was hosting a warm clothes drive during winter, and I came across a young girl who was banished from her shack in the slum area,” says Ahsan. “To my surprise, I was shocked to see how she was struggling in the cold. But due to lack of access to period products and prevailing stigma, she was banished due to her periods!” Alam says, “I joined the venture to engage and partner with corporations and NGOs to accelerate the business’s growth.” Alam and Ahsan plan to convert their prize money into Bangladeshi taka and invest into the fast-growing business.

Taking the top prize for the General Entrepreneurship Track was Zachary Suh with ElderlyEats. Suh, a freshman studying marketing, created ElderlyEats to provide senior citizens with meal plans that are diverse, customizable, and nutritious. The idea came to him when his grandmother developed health conditions that made it difficult for her to digest food. “Our team of dieticians and chefs have carefully curated traditional meals elders are used to and incorporated common nutritional needs elderly people deal with, past just vegan and gluten free and accommodate common dietary conditions, such as Alzheimer’s and dysphagia,” he says. Suh is planning to use the prize money to develop meals vetted through dieticians and stronger customer discovery.

Sumeet Shrivastava, MBA ’94

Sumeet Shrivastava, MBA ’94, donor of the CIE’s Shrivastava Family Refugee and Immigrant Success through Entrepreneurship (RISE) program, announced the event’s winners, track by track, and welcomed them to the stage. External representatives from each competition track presented giant checks to their respective winners. The representatives were Beth Young, PhD Education Policy ’18, president of Quality Information Partners, Inc. and Commissioner of Fairfax City Economic Development; Gurdip Singh, divisional dean of the School of Computing in Mason's College of Engineering and Computing; Anil Sharma, CEO of 22nd Century Technologies Inc.; and John Hoeveler, manager of national business investment at Fairfax County Economic Development Authority.

Dean Ajay Vinzé

The 2024 Patriot Pitch Competition was a culmination of months, and sometimes years, of hard work, starting from the initial idea to the polished pitch in front of a room of audience members. For a month leading up to the semifinals, the teams met with their mentors and attended entrepreneurship training sessions with Costello College of Business faculty. The experience of the participants and the feedback they received will serve as a launching pad to becoming successful entrepreneurs. The event is another triumph of inclusive entrepreneurship for the Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship and the Costello College of Business.

Thank you to the event’s sponsors: 22nd Century Technologies, Inc.; College of Engineering and Computing at ��AV; Fairfax City Economic Development Authority; Costello College of Business Women in Business Initiative; Costello College of Business Management Advisory Council; Fairfax County Economic Development Authority; and the Greg and Camille Baroni Center for Government Contracting at the Costello College of Business.

The CIE team led the organization of the event, helping make it an outstanding experience for all those involved.

If you are interested in being a mentor, judge, or sponsor of the Patriot Pitch, please email ciemason@gmu.edu to learn more.

2024 Patriot Pitch Competition Participants

Lead Event Organizers: CIE Team

Topics

Costello College of Business Students

Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship

Costello College of Business

Learn more about the Patriot Pitch Competition

In This Story

Ajay Vinzé

Patrick Soleymani

Sumeet Shrivastava, '94

Rebecca Howick

Mason’s research is best in Virginia in multiple EduRank rankings

Sarah Holland — Wed, 03 Apr 2024 16:41:23 +0000

Mason’s research is best in Virginia in multiple EduRank rankings Sarah Holland Wed, 04/03/2024 - 12:41

Eighteen ��AV programs are ranked the best in Virginia in a new report by EduRank that focuses on performance in research.

Students enjoy the cherry blossoms on the Fairfax Campus. Photo by Eduardo de Souza/Office of University Branding.

Topping the list is Mason’s entrepreneurship ecosystem, which for the second consecutive year was ranked No. 1 among all public institutions and No. 2 among all institutions nationally.

Best-in-Virginia programs were spread across the university and included those from the Costello College of Business, the Schar School of Policy and Government, the College of Engineering and Computing, the College of Humanities and Social Sciences (CHSS), the Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter School for Peace and Conflict Resolution, the College of Visual and Performing Arts, the Antonin Scalia Law School, the College of Education and Human Development, and the ROTC.

That research is supported by entities such as the Office of Research, Innovation, and Economic Impact, which has overall responsibility for Mason’s research enterprise and support of entrepreneurship and innovation. And Costello College’s Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship lets students dig into entrepreneurship, from the theoretical to the experimental.

Mason’s entrepreneurial ecosystem is anchored by the university and reaches out into the broader community. Mason Enterprise, a division of the Office of Research, Innovation, and Economic Impact, is a strategic collection of 24 programs that support entrepreneurs and small business owners across Virginia, and conducts more than 1,500 training programs and more than 30,000 hours of one-on-one counseling with entrepreneurs in the community and from universities each year.

It is that environment of research, discovery, and innovation, which is a main contributor to Mason’s R1 designation from the Carnegie Classification of Higher Education as one of the nation’s top research universities.

And though the EduRank rankings focus mainly on research performance, they are an indicator of the quality of the programs from which that research is produced.

“Mason is committed to accelerating the translation of research into practice by leveraging university talent, infrastructure, and partnerships to create solutions for societies’ toughest challenges at speed and scale,” said Andre Marshall, Mason’s vice president for research, innovation, and economic impact. “It is a credit to our faculty and students that Mason is a place where we can put theory into practice.”

Added Paula Sorrell, Mason’s associate vice president of innovation and economic development, “Mason was originally created by the business community to serve its needs, and for 50 years it has been doing just that. In the past four years, we’ve significantly amped up our tech entrepreneurship to support and mirror the rapidly growing tech economy, adding 16 new programs and counting.”

Research is the bedrock of entrepreneurship, Costello College dean Ajay Vinzé said.

The university’s top rankings “are in many ways reflective of our approach to business education and the business of higher education,” he said. “Our approach—built on the foundation of a rich university-wide entrepreneurial ecosystem, powered by a growing body of faculty research across multiple fields of study—is changing the arc of higher education expectation and delivery as we prepare the next generation of leaders.”

Costello College is a contributor to the top entrepreneurship ranking, along with the Schar School and the Mercatus Center, all of which produce volumes of research, articles, and papers for an abundance of publications.

Schar School dean Mark J. Rozell called entrepreneurship research “a very distinguishing feature for a public policy and government school.”

Its research at the Center for Micro-Economic Policy Research (CMEPR), for example, is focused on diversity and disadvantaged groups among entrepreneurs, especially those who are Black, immigrants, and female. It also looks at job creation by minority entrepreneurs in minority and low-income communities.

“The center brings an unusual contribution to research on entrepreneurship by focusing on these issues,” said John Earle, the center’s director and a Distinguished University Professor, who has published more than 60 articles and scholarly papers. “While the typical focus for entrepreneurship studies is for performance, especially for firms receiving venture-capital support, CMEPR research analyzes a much broader range of businesses, and how public policies affect the entry, growth, and survival of those owned by minority entrepreneurs.”

At the College of Engineering and Computing, Dean Ken Ball noted that CEC faculty garnered more than $119 million in research awards in 2023.

Dean Alpaslan Ozerdem's Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter School for Peace and Conflict Resolution class. Photo by: Ron Aira/Office of University Branding.

“I’m proud that our research has informed and strengthened our academic programs and led to innovation and economic growth that benefits society,” Ball said. “Mason has consistently been a national leader in cybersecurity, data analytics, software engineering, aviation, and web development. These rankings reflect the impact CEC researchers have in areas of engineering and computing that are relevant to everyone, as well as our leadership position among Virginia’s public universities.”

CHSS dean Ann Ardis said her college’s contributions to research in best-of-Virginia areas such as criminology, broadcasting, law enforcement, journalism, and political economy “are a testament to the scholarly excellence of our faculty. We take immense pride in our researchers’ contributions to Mason’s growing reputation nationally as a comprehensive R1 institution with strengths across a range of research areas.”

For Alpaslan Özerdem, dean of the Carter School, the ranking in conflict resolution “fuels our dedication to shaping a more peaceful and understanding world.”

Özerdem noted that the school has been at the forefront of teaching, researching, and implementing conflict resolution for four decades.

“So being recognized as the premier institution for conflict resolution in Virginia deepens our pride and reaffirms our vital role within the broader conflict resolution ecosystem of the commonwealth,” he said.

Here are the programs ranked the best in Virginia, with ranking among public institutions and overall national ranking; best in Washington, D.C., Virginia and Maryland (DMV) where noted:

Aviation: 8, 11 (best in the DMV)

Broadcast Journalism: 40, 58

Cinematography: 29, 48 (best in the DMV)

Conflict Resolution: 15, 28

Criminology: 19, 26

Cybersecurity: 21, 33

Data Administration: 19, 29

Entrepreneurship: 1, 2 (best in the DMV)

Human Rights Law: 9, 28 (best in the DMV)

Intellectual Property Law: 6, 18 (best in the DMV)

Law Enforcement: 5, 10 (best in the DMV)

Military Science: 33, 47

Political Economy: 14, 28

Public Policy Administration: 17, 29 (best in the DMV)

Radio & TV Broadcasting: 37, 55

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Costello College of Business leads the way in entrepreneurship research

Jennifer Anzaldi — Thu, 21 Mar 2024 15:37:47 +0000

Costello College of Business leads the way in entrepreneurship research Jennifer Anzaldi Thu, 03/21/2024 - 11:37

In This Story

Toyah Miller

Heather Vough

*This article was originally published in the January 2024 edition of Impact magazine.

The college that now bears Donald G. Costello’s name is a fitting testament to his entrepreneurial legacy. This extends not only to coursework and outreach programs, which have long stressed entrepreneurship, but also to the faculty’s research expertise. Indeed, a number of Costello College of Business professors were key contributors to ��AV's being named the #2 university for entrepreneurship research in North America by independent ratings agency EduRank.

Here are just a few examples of researchers who have made meaningful contributions to the field in recent years:

Mahesh Joshi

MAHESH JOSHI
Associate Professor, Management

Mahesh Joshi’s more than 30 peer-reviewed publications mostly focus on fostering qualities and skills essential to entrepreneurial success, both within and outside large organizations.
For Joshi, good entrepreneurs are primarily defined by how they think and what they do. Start-up founders and small business owners share a problem-solving skill set with change agents working in big corporations.

“For long-term success of corporations or start-ups, every person has to think like a change agent,” Joshi says. “And that change agent’s approach comes through understanding certain variables like risk-taking, innovativeness, and how to handle the political situation whether you have autonomy or not. And if we do that, we are building the whole toolkit of corporate entrepreneurship or regular entrepreneurship.”

For example, Joshi’s co-authored 2015 paper in Decision Sciences elaborates on the delicate balance between proactiveness and innovativeness within technology-based services firms. With too much proactive change agency, strategy execution (which contributes to innovativeness) suffers. Joshi found that a formalized organizational structure can moderate the tensions between these two factors, while helping firms reap more innovative benefits from risk-taking.

Most recently, Joshi has been looking at how entrepreneurship education can be most effective in driving students’ behavior once they graduate, especially for groups that have been historically excluded from entrepreneurship. His co-authored 2022 paper in Journal of Enterprising Communities suggested a new potential method to narrow the well-established gap in “entrepreneurial intention” between male and female students. He found that for entrepreneurship students from four universities in India, entrepreneurial intention was linked to a sense of career-readiness. Where that sense was present, the gender gap in intention disappeared.

Career readiness (“a proxy for confidence,” as Joshi terms it) is emotional and subjective, and is not something that can be learned from a book. Therefore, Joshi advises policymakers and pedagogues, “Just classroom education is not enough…If educators want to create an entrepreneurial mindset free of gender bias, they have to create an environment where there are co-curricular activities like pitch competitions and site visits.”

Toyah Miller

TOYAH MILLER
Professor, Management
Serving as research director for the Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship, Toyah Miller is a leading thinker in the burgeoning field of social entrepreneurship research. Where the standard entrepreneur strives simply to maximize profit, social entrepreneurs attempt to solve a difficult social problem while keeping their business viable. Miller’s published research delves into the unique motivations and challenges involved in social entrepreneurship.

In a 2013 paper for Academy of Management Review, Miller theorized that compassion and caring served as a joint catalyst for social entrepreneurship activity, and thus not all entrepreneurs fit the mold of rationally self-interested businesspeople. Although her view validates entrepreneurs seeking to make the world a better place, it also suggests that the primacy of “heart over head” could lead social entrepreneurs to take on undue business risks.

In an ongoing research study, Miller looks at how the idealism of entrepreneurs affects their crowdfunding pitches to potential investors. Surveying more than 200 Kickstarter creators, she finds that idealistic creators posted fewer informative updates on their campaign pages, and as a result were less likely to get funded. In Miller’s view, this provides yet more evidence of heart-based entrepreneurs making sub-optimal choices, in this case by overestimating potential backers’ willingness to help and underestimating their need to be convinced.

Cognitive biases such as idealism are not limited to entrepreneurs. Another one of Miller’s in-progress studies examines the types of feedback given to start-up founders within accelerators and incubators. Generally, entrepreneurs were more likely to take negative feedback on board when it came with concrete recommendations. When feedback was more abstract, urging change with no specific alternative mentioned, it was less influential on decision-making. Therefore, the framing of feedback could, in some cases, make the difference between success and failure for entrepreneurs whose venture is in need of a pivot.

Heather Vough

HEATHER VOUGH
Associate Professor, Management
One of Heather Vough’s chief research specialties is professional identity. Her 2023 paper for Academy of Management Discoveries considers the effects of entrepreneurship’s cultural centrality—as reflected in hit shows such as Shark Tank and movies like Wolf of Wall Street—upon actual practitioners’ sense of themselves.

Through multiple rounds of exhaustive interviews with 29 entrepreneurs from North America and Australia, the authors discovered that while founders readily self-identify as entrepreneurs, they are reluctant to present themselves as such in social situations. Instead, they will use substitute self-descriptors such as job titles or company names—basically, anything except “entrepreneur.”

Analyzing interview responses alongside existing research on professional identity, the authors posit that founders decline to call themselves “entrepreneurs” because: a) they fear they would be misunderstood; and/or b) they believe the label would make them seem unrelatable to nonentrepreneurs. In other words, the cultural and economic emphasis on entrepreneurship has backfired to an extent. By flooding the zone with misleading or ambiguous impressions (e.g., entrepreneurs are all rich Silicon Valley “bros”), entrepreneurship’s exponents have inadvertently turned the term into a social liability.

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Costello College of Business Faculty Research

Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship