Project focuses on how ISU could purchase refurbished shipping containers to produce horticultural specialty crops using LED lighting technology. An example of how this can be done is outlined at www.freightfarms.com.
Team will identify inputs and costs to purchasing and operating this system, location of the unit, and expected benefits to the University and to the Community. The recommendations of this team will be shared with the ISU Sustainability fund for potential consideration for implementation at ISU! A follow-on project could focus on how specialty crops grown in this unit could be used to supply local central IL vending machines similar to Farmer’s Fridge in Chicago https://www.farmersfridge.com/.

Project Mentor

Dr. Dave Kopsell Horticulture Professor in the Agriculture Department
Outside Resource: Elisabeth Reed, Director of Sustainability at ISU.

Competencies needed by students involved

• Interest in gardening
• Urban Agriculture, Horticulture, and Food Production
• Technology
• Business, and Sustainability

Final Deliverable

TBD

Virtual reality is an experience taking place within simulated and immersive environments that can be similar to or completely different from the real world (Wikipedia). This project is to create a VR experience that replaces (to the extent possible) face to face training for claims (insurance) adjusters.

Project Mentor

Dr. Roy Magnuson (Associate Professor, School of Music)

Competencies needed by students involved

• Technology and Programming
• Design and modeling
• Background/Knowledge of insurance industry

Final Deliverable

TBD

Evaluate the feasibility of launching a Food Truck at ISU. Assess all factors associated with it such as cost to purchase a truck, capabilities needed, target audiences, inputs to make food, cost to operate and any additional expenses both short and long term, branding and marketing, among other factors. Recommendations on who “owns” (manages) the truck should be part of this analysis. The second part of the project is to evaluate the strategic fit for a pre-identified major grocery chain to sponsor the food truck. What is the scope and duration of this sponsorship and how would both ISU and the grocery chain benefit from this association? Assess all factors including intellectual property, risk management, among others.

Food Focus
What are the potential uses for the truck throughout the entire year (prioritized)? What types of food items should be considered? Who are the likely target audiences for its services? How could ISU and the grocery chain each benefit? What food preparation protocols/regulations are applicable and what system is recommended to ensure these are followed? How would raw materials make food items be sourced? Which entity on campus would “own” the Food Truck? What is the likely or recommended reporting (management) structure? What are the risks associated with the purchase and management of a food truck and how can these be mitigated? How could ISU and the grocery chain each benefit from sponsorship by grocery chain of Food Truck?

Business Focus
Cost to purchase a new and a used food truck for purposes of cost comparison. What regulations and start-up expenses are necessary? What ongoing operational expenses are expected? Develop a short and medium-term set of relevant financial statements. Who are the likely target audiences for its services? How would raw materials make food items be sourced? What intellectual property issues are relevant and how to address those? What are likely target audiences for use of truck? How could ISU and the grocery chain each benefit from sponsorship by grocery chain of Food Truck? What are the risks associated with the purchase and management of a food truck and how can these be mitigated?

Risk Management
Conduct an extensive assessment of all risks associated with owning and operating a food truck.

Expectation:

Teams (food and business) meet periodically (about every 2 weeks) to share their insights and will present to clients ONE integrated presentation (PPT).

Client(s) name(s):

Department of Family and Consumer Sciences at ISU

Project Mentor

• Matthew Horton (Executive Chef, Event Management, Dining, and Hospitality at ISU)
• Andrew Bordewick, an ISU alumnus, has 13 years of experience in the financial services industry with work focused on marketing and product development. He has an MBA from Illinois State University and has consulted with primary and secondary schools on marketing, advancement, and development efforts. Other interests include playing music, running, and coaching junior high cross country.
• Jim Jones

Competencies needed by students involved

• Interest in culinary
• Business start-ups and strategy
• Business operations and finance

Woodstock, IL is well known as the location where the famous movie Ground Hog Day was filmed. Thousands of people visit Woodstock to celebrate Ground Hog day which spurs significant interest and investment in the community. As the original viewers of the movie get older, there is an opportunity to expose the movie and its spirit to a younger generation. The focus of this project is how the WGDC could use new media (social media) to strategically share the Ground Hog Day movie story with a younger generation and develop a stronger connection to the city of Woodstock, IL.
Team can visit the city in the fall and ideally again on February 2, 2020, Ground Day, to experience the event.

Project Mentor

Dr. Kristina Kaufman higher education academic and published author with multiple degrees in business and education from ISU.

Competencies needed by faculty and students involved

• Economic development
• Communication and Movie Culture

Final Deliverable

Provide overall strategy and low-cost tactics to educate the younger generation about the movie and its connection to Woodstock. Tactics should include creative material and timeline for when and how to implement along with a budget. Since the final ICC deliverable is April 2020, this project will help them the following year.

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) annually dredge 300 million cubic yards nationwide to maintain channels’ navigation. The USACE is authorized to use dredged materials for environmentally beneficial purposes. Beneficial use is defined as “the use of dredged materials, by placing them where they can maximize the most-good, rather than wasting them by disposal”. Beneficial use calls for putting materials where they are most needed with optimized economic benefit and environmental restoration, and therefore, is strongly related to developing plans to implement practices at the state level, addressing collaborative process and engaging the local community.

Therefore, the proposed project will research and investigate the beneficial use of dredged materials in the State of Illinois. The proposed research will identify economic and environmentally-friendly beneficial use of dredged material in Illinois by synthesizing the relevant information from a thorough literature review and providing a robust characterization of dredged material based on location. The robust characterization would allow consideration of the full spectrum of possible matching of sources, markets, and missions as well as competing forces between economic growth and environmental restoration, allowing the identification of optimal candidate uses while defining collaborative strategies.

The project objective includes:

• Identify useful references based on their relevance to feasible beneficial uses, collaborative strategies, and/or sediment management plans and strategies
• Dredged material characterization by location for finding suitable alternatives of beneficial uses
• Network optimization in matching the sources, markets, and missions aligned with federal and state guidelines in Illinois
• Multi-criteria and multi-objective optimization for recommending alternatives based on the report’s findings, and conclusions

Client(s) name(s):

US Army Corps of Engineers, Aviation & Marine Transportation Program Planning, Illinois Department of Transportation (IDOT) and the Illinois Ready Mixed Concrete Association.

Project Mentor

Dr. Pranshoo Solanki
Dr. Clay Robinson
Dr. Guang Jin

Final deliverable format:

Research white paper, project findings and analysis summary, prototype or specifications, recommended action plan with a business case, survey or data collection results with corresponding insights):

How has this major league baseball team’s fan base changed as expressed through single game day tickets, group, and season ticket holders before and after 2015? Provide insights on why this change may have occurred. Possible reasons for the “why” include changes in demographics, changes in entertainment offerings but there may be others. Suggestions for a follow-up project are welcome.

Project Mentor

Dr. Rebecca Achen
Dr. Chiharu Ishida Lambert
Mark Gibson

Competencies needed by faculty and students involved

• Business Analysis
• Analytics
• Interest in baseball and its demographic analysis

Final Deliverable

Graphics showing a change in fan base overtime in addition to some commentary on why this may have occurred.

Public-private partnerships are a very important opportunity for universities to take advantage of. They provide various resources that are not easily obtained by universities such as transfer of the latest skills, know-how, and technologies, internship and job opportunities for students, in addition to money.

Organizations often have opportunities in the form of projects that may require expertise found at a university but finding an efficient point of contact at the university in which to address projects is not always available to organizations. Additionally, the point of contact for the organization is often organized in a single college or department when a project requires a multi-disciplinary (multi-department of college) approach.

Universities that have industry liaisons or other structures may facilitate project intake for multidisciplinary handling and are better equipped to build these relationships and acquire these important organizational resources.

This project would evaluate how universities that are peer and aspirational to ISU are structured to welcome and field these project requests by organizations, identify specific project examples these universities secured, and recommend to ISU how it may structure itself in the future to capitalize on these important opportunities.

Project Mentor

TBD

Competencies needed by faculty and students involved

• Analytics
• Higher education

Final Deliverable

White paper containing trends in university-organization partnerships, examples of how peer and aspirational schools to ISU are having success obtaining multidisciplinary research/student projects from external organizations, evaluating their university structure, and providing recommendations on how ISU could provide a single point of contact for multi-disciplinary projects from organizations

The focus of this project is to develop the marketing and social media site of the IL Global Scholar. This is a state-approved project mostly supported by volunteer labor, so helping create ideas for marketing and support materials is important. This is a new program so current awareness is limited. First, there must be marketing to school districts so they see what this can do for their students. Second, there must be marketing to help teachers see the value to be involved. Finally, there must be marketing to students so students commit to the program.

Client

IL Global Scholar Program, an NGO started by high school teachers in IL who believed high school students could learn by engaging more in global issues.

Project Mentor

Dr. Barbara Ribbons (Associate Professor and Director of the International Business Institute)

Competencies needed by faculty and students involved

• Marketing & International Business
• Education
• Social Media, Languages, Area studies
• Global and Political issues
• Oral and Communication skills

Final Deliverable

A portfolio of marketing materials focused on the 3 audiences which promote the value of a global perspective and a report outlining strategies for growing the IGS program using these materials.

What is commercial innovation, you ask? It is new ideas generated across the marketing mix, based on insight, that refresh the brand’s equity, build differentiation, and ultimately drive brand growth without changing the existing product offering. Your options are only limited to your imagination!

Client(s) name(s):

Nutrition Brand in Fortune 500 Company

Project Mentor

Dr. Peter Kaufman

Competencies needed by faculty and students involved

• Consumer-obsessed, Critical thinking/problem solving
• Creativity & Curiosity
• Marketing concepts & Startegic thinking
• Good oral and written communication skills

Final deliverable format:

A commercial innovation strategy – a series of well-planned tactics, based on a consumer insight, that leverages the brand’s equity. The strategy should answer the following questions: What is the consumer insight? What problem are you solving? Why is your strategy meaningful to consumers and does this brand have the right to win? How would it build differentiation versus competition? What are the implications (i.e. creative needs, growth, consumer engagement, cost)? Recommendations should include strategic/creative messaging, partnerships, programs, and visuals of bringing the commercial innovation strategy to life!

Identification and preliminary qualification of potential overseas distributors for a seventy-five-year-old family-owned company that produces automobile appearance products. Ideally, the team will identify digital tools to find these potential distributors versus traditional approaches such as trade shows.

Client(s) name(s):

U.S. based family-owned company that produces automobile appearance products

Project Mentor

Dr. Barbara Ribbons

Competencies needed by faculty and students involved

• Interest in auto industry
• Creativity & Curiosity
• Second language (optional)

Final deliverable format:

A combination of both a successful low-cost process that was used and can be used in the future along with a set of semi-qualified distributor prospects for a region or regions. Geographic regions will be partly driven by the language proficiency of students on the team.

HHS was approached by one of its vendors who helps with marketing and outreach about a potential Medallion Hunt event that could raise awareness for HHS in the communities it serves AND potentially generate financial resources (fundraise). HHS believes there are multiple opportunities for its organization with this type of event that could potentially be HHS’s Annual Event in Bloomington/Normal. HHS is seeking something that others have not done and that could be unique to HHS and to the citizens in Bloomington-Normal. Pekin, IL has hosted a Medallion Hunt for many years and this ICC project could use it as a starting point or model.

Client(s) name(s):

Heartland Head Start

Heartland Head Start (HHS) is a nonprofit charitable organization based in the city of Bloomington, Illinois. HHS provides comprehensive early childhood and social/human services for low-income children, ages birth to 5, as well as pregnant women and their families. HHS’ geographical area includes McLean and Livingston Counties in IL. More specifically, it operates Head Start classrooms (for ages 3-5) and Early Head Start classrooms (ages 6 weeks to 3 years) in Bloomington, Normal, and Pontiac. It offers home-based services in the rural communities for eligible pregnant women and Early Head Start children. The majority of children live in neighborhoods in the cities of Bloomington and Normal. Eligible families must meet income eligibility guidelines (at or below the federal poverty line) or be homeless or part of the foster system. All of its services are free. HHS is funded by the federal government and small local and private grants. Services include education, physical health, oral health, mental health, nutrition, socialization, transitions, transportation, family literacy, parent engagement, and services that meet the needs of special populations (children with disabilities, dual-language learners, children in foster care, children with incarcerated parents, and homeless families).

Per Federal regulations, the staff at HHS are not allowed to fundraise on work time. HHS has a non-federal match requirement to its grant as well that requires HHS to raise $920,000/year in donated time, space, goods or financial donations via volunteers, grants, etc. Due to HHS’ non-profit status, it struggles with time for strategic planning. HHS is also always faced with overworked and underpaid staff.

Project Mentor

Bailee Taylor – an ISU alumna, with significant experience with Event Marketing, Sponsorship Activation, Entertainment Marketing, Consumer Promotions, Marketing Integration, Trade Show Development, and Relationship Management.

Competencies needed by faculty and students involved

• Marketing & Communication
• Organizational Strategy

Final deliverable format:

Recommendations on the feasibility of hosting such an event. Possible sponsors, vendors, staff required, hours invested, locations of medallions, celebrity clue writer, media outlets to participate, and impact on the agency.

The global mining industry is undergoing transformation with mine operators seeking lower emissions for the underground extraction process. This project will ask the team to identify a country in Latin America and assess mining operations to assess how ripe existing and new mine operators are to using electric-powered machines to extract ore from underground.

Client:

Leading manufacturer of electric powered mining equipment.

Project Mentor

Dr. Peter Kaufman

Competencies needed by faculty and students involved

• Marketing concepts & Strategic thinking
• Creativity
• Critical thinking & Problem solving
• Spanish proficiency (for some team members)

Final deliverable format:

A careful analysis of customer needs, competitor issues including how should client position itself relative to the competition, market (number of mines, size of mines, type of machines used, if able to discern), regulations (current and trending) on underground ventilation, and challenges to market entry. The analysis will conclude with recommendations on whether the client should enter the market and what risks exist.

After gaining a lot of momentum from the success of Bitcoin and cryptocurrency, Blockchain technology has displayed its ability to streamline processes in a secure fashion, while maintaining its integrity along the way. As technology makes its way into the insurance industry, companies are working to better understand the technology as a whole and create use cases for implementation. This project will strive to bring clarity to the technology and provide recommendations on how it can be utilized in the insurance industry.

Client name:

Insurance company

Project Mentor

Jim Jones

Competencies needed by faculty and students involved

• Information Technology
• Interest in learning the basics of the insurance industry
• Business strategy & operations