- Date published
Missouri State’s new Innovation Institute will connect businesses and community partners with student talent, faculty expertise and fresh perspectives.
Every business has a challenge waiting for a fresh perspective. Every student needs opportunities to put what they’re learning to work.
Missouri State University’s new Innovation Institute will bring those opportunities together — and efactory is a founding partner.
The Institute will connect students and faculty across academic disciplines with employers and community organizations to explore ideas, tackle problems and develop practical solutions. It’s a university-wide effort to make collaboration easier and hands-on learning more accessible.
For our efactory community, that means more ways to connect with Missouri State and help prepare the people who will shape our region’s future.
Bring a challenge. Help build experience.
Think about a question your organization has been working through. Perhaps you’re exploring a new service, looking for a better process or trying to understand a community need.
Challenges like these can give students something valuable: a chance to work through a problem with people who have a stake in the outcome.
The Institute will help create those connections through applied projects and other experiences with employers and community partners. Faculty will bring their expertise. Students will bring their curiosity, classroom learning and different perspectives. Partners will bring context, experience and feedback that make the work meaningful.
The goal is practical: give students opportunities to develop skills and help organizations explore ways forward.
An entrepreneurial mindset, across majors
Recognizing an opportunity. Asking a better question. Making a decision with incomplete information. Adapting when an idea needs another try. These skills matter in businesses, classrooms, health care settings, nonprofits and communities. They will be at the heart of the Innovation Institute’s work.
Plans include interdisciplinary courses and an Entrepreneurial Mindset minor, along with workshops, speaker programs and professional development. A Faculty Fellows program will help faculty across colleges incorporate innovation and hands-on learning into student experiences.
Bringing students and faculty from different fields together will create opportunities to approach the same challenge from several directions — and learn from one another along the way.
Built on connections. Ready to grow.
Since 2013, efactory has helped entrepreneurs and businesses connect with resources, expertise and opportunities to start, scale and succeed. Our collaboration with Missouri State’s academic colleges have already brought students and business clients together.
The Innovation Institute builds on that experience and opens the door to broader collaboration across the university.
Rachel Munday, assistant vice president for economic development, and Dr. Jason DeBode, head of the Management Department, will serve as co-directors. Their shared leadership brings academic programming and community partnerships together from the start.
First-year plans focus on student projects, interdisciplinary programming, Faculty Fellows and pilot events. At efactory, we’ll help connect that work with the entrepreneurs, employers and partners in our network.
Let’s explore what we could do together
Have a business challenge that could benefit from a fresh perspective? Interested in sharing your expertise or exploring a student project?
We’d like to hear from you as the Institute takes shape.