New solar energy "chill" spot on campus

This Friday, January 13^th, UC San Diego’s Engineers for a Sustainable World (ESW) will be showcasing their solar projects at the site of Solar Chill, a recently finished project that is open for all the community to utilize.

The site is located between the Village and ERC housing areas, directly across the street from the Rady School of Management.  The event will take place from 12-2pm and feature the students responsible for Solar Chill and more, including SolarRoller and Solar Car.

Solar Chill is an off-grid photovoltaic structure that recently finished construction and is now open for use. The system can produce 1.5kW of electricity. This generated energy flows into a battery system that feeds the lighting for the site as well as outlets built into the on-site benches. Solar Chill was created to bring solar down from rooftops tucked away out of sight and give people a chance to directly interact with solar and see its functionality. Now that the site is up and running, it is the team’s goal to spread awareness of it so that the community knows to use it. This was the first student-designed project approved to be built on the UC San Diego campus and the team hopes it will serve as an inspiration to other student teams to implement their own creations.

The Solar Chill site is open to anyone - feel free to stop by and recharge!

Turning Engineers into Change Makers

Drive innovation from concept to commercialization – that’s the goal of one of the first initiatives – a four-course management training program for engineering students - of the new Institute of the Global Entrepreneur at the University of California San Diego. We sat down with a few of the students in program to get their thoughts on how they see it helping them translate their technology to the marketplace.

Nick Forsch, Bioengineering, Ph.D. Grad Year ‘19

“I caught the startup bug when I participated in a biomedical design competition - I love the innovation that comes out of small groups of people working towards a common goal with limited resources,” said Nick Forsch, a bioengineering PhD student at UC San Diego. “The nature of startups forces product design to focus on the essential components for meeting the needs of the target market.”

Upon arriving at UC San Diego after his undergraduate education at Washington University in St. Louis, Forsch joined bioengineering professor Andrew McCulloch’s cardiac mechanics lab. McCulloch’s research focuses on understanding the development of heart failure using models of cardiac electromechanics. When he’s not in class or the lab, Forsch is on of the vice presidents of the Bioengineering Graduate Society and enjoys playing soccer.

Read more about Nick

Originally from Huntington Beach, California, Karcher Morris came to UC San Diego to complete an undergraduate degree, and eventually a Ph.D. in mechanical engineering. When he’s not in class or doing research in Professor Frank Talke’s mechanics lab, Morris can be found in the EnVision Arts and Engineering Maker Studio where he TAs a number of experiential learning courses, or learning about business.

Karcher Morris, Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Ph.D. Grad Year ‘18

“About a year and a half into my Masters, I decided to switch into a Ph.D. program because I had a great lab and a great PI,” said Morris. “At that point, I wondered about an MBA program. With undergraduate degrees in both aerospace engineering and management science, I was always looking for that well-rounded experience.”

According to Morris, it was one or the other when it came to graduate school. “I could either further my technical skillset or switch to business.”

Morris is part of the first course in the new program.

“This class has given me a new perspective because I’m working with a diverse group of motivated engineers.”

Read more about Karcher

Somayeh Imani found her niche in circuit design of wearable sensors – and it opened her eyes to the world of startups.

Group photo of Patrick Mercier's Energy-Efficient Microsystem lab. Imani is second from the left in the back row.

“There is so much opportunity in the field of wearables to commercialize technology,” said Imani, who is a graduate student in the Energy-Efficient Microsystem lab of Patrick Mercier, the Co-Director of the Center for Wearable Sensors at the University of California San Diego. “But commercialization is hard – you need a business plan and marketing skills –things that engineers don’t usually learn much about during their degree.”

Imani is part of the new pilot course – the first of four in the Technology Management and Entrepreneurism Fellowship Program – that aims to turn engineers into change makers through exposing them to the lab to market commercialization process. Participants earn a certificate at the end of four quarters.

Read more about Somayeh

  

Illuminating Your Movement: Entrepreneur Showcases Lighting Company at Institute for Global Entrepreneur Launch Event

Dancer and handstand instructor Tammuz Dubnov graduated from UC Berkeley at the age of 18; now at the age of 21, he runs a successful lighting company, all while working on his masters degree in materials science at UC San Diego.

Zuzor, the company Dubnov started, illuminates your movement using a sensor (like Xbox Kinect) to capture your movement, project it onto a screen, and overlay beautiful graphics like the ones in the video above.

Dubnov was present at the launch event for the new Institute for the Global Entrepreneur at UC San Diego June 2 to showcase his technology. The Institute is a collaboration between the UC San Diego Jacobs School of Engineering and Rady School of Management and is dedicated to training engineering leaders and translating university discoveries to the market. Dubnov participated in the NSF I-Corps program at UC San Diego, run by the von Liebig Entrepreneurism Center, which is a part of the new institute.

To learn more about the Institute for the Global Entrepreneur, go to IGE.ucsd.edu.

UC San Diego to Launch Institute for the Global Entrepreneur June 2

Join us for a symposium and entrepreneur showcase on June 2 to launch the UC San Diego Institute for the Global Entrepreneur. The Institute is a collaboration between the UC San Diego Jacobs School of Engineering and Rady School of Management and is dedicated to training global engineering leaders and translating university discoveries to the marketplace.

Event details
June 2, 2016

1:00 p.m. to 6:00 p.m in Atkinson Hall at UC San Diego
There is no cost to attend this event, but RSVP is required.

More details

The schedule for the event is as follows:

Welcome and Introduction of the Institute

1:00-1:30PM

Albert P. Pisano

Dean, Jacobs School of Engineering

Robert Sullivan

Dean, Rady School of Management

Sujit Dey

Director, Institute for the Global Entrepreneur
Professor, Dept. of Electrical Engineering, Jacobs School

Vish Krishnan

Associate Director, Institute for the Global Entrepreneur
Professor of Innovation Technology & Operations, Rady School

Entrepreneurism Education For Engineers

1:30-1:50PM

Harvey White

Chairman
(SHW)² Enterprises

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1:50-2:10PM

Don Lewis Millard

Deputy Division Director of the Engineering and Education Centers
National Science Foundation

Entrepreneurism Education And Training Panel

2:15-3:00PM

Rosibel Ochoa

Executive Director for Entrepreneurism and Leadership Programs
Jacobs School of Engineering

Lada Rasochova

Executive Director, California Institute for Innovation and Development
Rady School of Management

Harvey White

Chairman
(SHW)² Enterprises

Don Lewis Millard

Deputy Division Director of the Engineering and Education Centers
National Science Foundation

3:00-3:30PM

Break

3:30-3:50PM

Dan Kaufman

Director
Advanced Technologies and Projects (ATAP)
Google

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3:50-4:30PM

Early-Stage Venture Panel

David Schwab

Founder and Managing Director
Vertical Venture Partners and Triton Technology Fund

Amit Shah

Partner
Artiman Ventures

Taner Halicioglu

Co-Founder and Partner
Seed San Diego

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4:30-6:00PM

Reception And Entrepreneur's Showcase

15 UC San Diego Spinout Companies

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Institute for the Global Entrepreneur  

The Institute for the Global Entrepreneur encompasses education and training programs, mentoring and strategic partnerships, all working toward a common goal: preparing engineers to become change makers, technical leaders, and entrepreneurs who drive innovation within organizations both large and small.  

The Institute is a collaboration between the UC San Diego Jacobs School of Engineering and Rady School of Management and is dedicated to training global engineering leaders and translating university discoveries to the marketplace.

Learn more