Current and prospective San Jose State students explored the school’s innovation and research efforts at the SpartUp Innovation Showcase on Monday at the 7th Street Plaza.
The SpartUp Innovation Showcase is the first event to start SJSU’s Research Week, a five day showcase of student and faculty research.
The event aimed to showcase innovation at SJSU and educate students on the research opportunities available to them with booths by NASA’s Ames Research Center, student-run startups and SJSU’s Office of Innovation among others.
“What we’re hoping, really, is for students who might be here in a H&A major or athletics or something and have no idea that things like this are being created by their fellow students, by their professors and to get them engaged and interested in research,” said Lisa Laymon, the innovation programs facilitator for SJSU’s Office of Innovation.
Laymon said there are people at SJSU who may not realize that the school’s research opportunities apply to them.
“San Jose State is a very unusual university in terms of the number of opportunities for undergraduate research,” she said. “We have a lot of undergrad opportunities and that, in turn, puts people on a path to grad school.”
Sandeep Mukkamala, intellectual property specialist for the Office of Innovation, said SJSU leaning toward research and innovation has been created intentionally.
The Office of Innovation’s mission is to encourage the creation of quality startup companies, build relationships with industry leaders and create a bigger audience for the innovations happening at SJSU, according to its website.
Mukkamala said California State Universities have been historically more geared toward education, while University of California Schools have been more research-oriented. This has resulted in SJSU creating tools such as the SpartUp Incubator Program to try to change that.
“The constraints for students are resources and time,” Mukkamala said. “Usually what happens is you have an idea and you start with it but then nothing happens. The purpose of the incubator is to try to move from that position to the next position.”
The SpartUp Incubator Program is meant to provide entrepreneurs at SJSU with resources to help them succeed in the business and research worlds, according to its website.
General engineering senior Gautham Narayanan said he has taken advantage of the program for his own startup, Forward, which he co-founded and now oversees as the chief operating officer.
Forward is a personal AI assistant designed to help students have a smooth and efficient job seeking experience.
“I’m an engineering student – I don't have much of a business mindset. SpartUp Incubator has been helping me a lot,” Narayanan said.
Through SpartUp Incubator, Narayanan said he and his collaborators received mentorship and advising on their business model and product. They also received opportunities to practice pitching, connections to events and competitions to get their product in front of an audience.
“I’m glad that SJSU’s getting into the startup game like other universities,” Narayanan said. “I wanted to use this opportunity to spread my message and motivate other students to pursue the startup route.”
The Silicon Valley Small Business Development Center, another resource for SJSU entrepreneurs, had its own booth at the event.
Director of the center Edgar Ceron said the booth’s purpose was to spread awareness of the Silicon Valley Small Business Development Center’s services and encourage students to take advantage of it.
“There’s a lot of talent here and we’re a free resource,” Ceron said. “There’s a lot of innovative ideas that are already happening that if they had the support of business mentors and advisors, they could develop that idea into a business.”
Computer science assistant professor Wendy Lee said events such as the SpartUp Innovation Showcase are very beneficial to student researchers.
“It gives them the opportunity to practice public speaking and talking to people in a way that everybody can understand because not everybody is a computer scientist or biochemist,” Lee said. “These are really important skills, especially when they go to work in the industry.”
