Day: November 16, 2021

By Chris Morgan, Assistant Director of Educational Partnerships

A special thank you to the supporters of the Michigan Tech Enterprise Program! This year Enterprise and Senior Design Teams are tackling inspiring and engaging projects and are solving problems more important than ever before.

Students enrolled in Enterprise right now are solving leading-edge technology problems, including energy-saving appliances, automotive autonomy and electrification, intelligent grid systems, medical devices, heavy machinery, department of defense, and even emerging bicycle technology. Students even have an opportunity to get involved in our community with projects that support local non-profits like Little Brother’s, Friends of the Elderly.

Our Consumer Products Manufacturing Enterprise (CPM) is once again working to create practical prototypes of the “Shared Air” system that can help mitigate and eliminate bacteria and viruses in buildings and enclosed spaces. Long-time Enterprise supporter General Motors are now sponsoring the project.

The ITOxygen Enterprise team is diving headfirst into Machine Learning and AI technology with two relevant projects studying and analyzing big data sets of video and imaging for medical and civil engineering customers. Fascinating implementation of new skillsets from the team and new hardware and servers are being put to good use!

Enterprise teams need your support in developing projects and financial support for students to gain educational exposure to real-world engineering, design, business, and problem-solving. As you may know, the Enterprise Program relies on external partnerships to make real-world project curriculum a reality. If you are interested in supporting Michigan Tech students’ education through real-world, hands-on projects, please contact me – Chris Morgan – cjmorgan@mtu.edu. There are many ways to support the teams, including general donation, project sponsorships, Advanced Motorsports Team Support, and Gift in Kind Donation. For more information, please see the Enterprise Sponsorship Website. (Link: https://www.mtu.edu/enterprise/giving/)

If you are already participating as a partner with the Michigan Tech Enterprise Program, thank you! Please don’t hesitate to let us know if you have any experience highlights, questions, or concerns.

By Rick Berkey, Professor of Practice and Director, The Enterprise Program

Welcome to the Fall 2021 issue of the Enterprise Program Newsletter. And welcome to early November in Houghton — as you can see in this photo, Mt. Ripley may get a head start on the ski season if this keeps up!

With our Fall 2021 semester well underway, we have plenty of great news and highlights to share in this issue. Despite the global pandemic, external sponsorship and project support remains strong. Similarly, Spring 2021 Enterprise enrollment was the highest since 2008, with combined team and module course enrollments of 901 students! While external support and enrollment metrics only tell part of the story, both are signals of the value of Enterprise — for students, program partners, and employers of Enterprise graduates. Looking further at enrollment, we see growth across campus, consistent with our efforts to expand and provide experiential learning opportunities. Fun fact: while engineering majors represent ~75% of Enterprise enrollment, students from 24 unique majors outside of engineering now participate in Enterprise. Teams like Hotforest, CinOptic, and the newly launched H-STEM Enterprise (featured in this issue) are helping fuel this growth. And, what’s even more encouraging is that our enterprises are becoming more interdisciplinary: the “average” enterprise enrolls 36 students from six unique majors!

Along with many new student faces, we have seven new faculty serving as advisors or co-advisors. Please join me in welcoming Nick Hendrickson (MMET), David Labyak (MMET), Tim Havens (CS), Joe Azzarello (Chem Eng), Robert Handler (Chem Eng), Steven Elmer (KIP), and Shane Oberloier (ECE) to our Enterprise community. As usual, we also have several team highlights to share since our summer newsletter, so without further delay, please read on and enjoy! 

— Go Huskies!