Let's Talk UNLV

0:00:00
All right, welcome to another segment of Let's Talk UNRV on KUNV. You with co-hosts Keith and Renee. Renee, how was your weekend?

0:00:15
Great. I'm really enjoying this weather. It's just, you know, nice little breeze to it. I can go to the gym. I can you know go out and shop indoor outdoor with you know This is a nice time and then not to mention Do a little pampering on the weekends with the nails and the manicure pedicure and everything That's kind of how my weekend was what about yours well mine was quite the opposite. I was destroying my nails I Was actually doing some projects at home working on doing some auto repairs, so pulling out seats and cleaning all the

0:00:52
interior and changing the trims and that dry rod out with the heat here in

0:00:58
the desert. You don't do the detail cleaning? You don't trust the local car wash?

0:01:02
This is more intense stuff like I had to take the weather stripping off the trim of the windows and you know just change things so I have a 20 year old project car. I see okay. I was busy with that. Well I'm excited Renee we have our guest today, Dr. Nadine Ventis, who is the program manager in the center at the Trosh Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation. Nadine, welcome to the show. Thank you so much. I'm so happy to be here. Nadine, could you start us off by just telling us a little bit about yourself, how you came into the role that you're in and maybe briefly what the Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation does at a high level.

0:01:43
Yes, so I'm actually from the Program Manager of the Choice Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation. I've been at UNLV for four years in this role. I was a Program Manager, but my whole career has been higher education. Before coming to UNLV, I moved here four years ago. I was 14 years at the University of Southern California. At USC, I started as a GA and I worked my way up to Executive Director of an office. So at USC, I did everything from, again, started as a GA in a master's program, earned my master and doctorate there. And my last two roles there, one was Executive Director of a Master of Science in Social Entrepreneurship at the Marshall School of Business. And one was Executive Director of the Global Executive Doctor of Education Program there. So, but my husband and I, we were actually on a commute with three hours a day. I lived in Orange County, I drove to SC and I was, that was weighing on me. So when we decided that it was time for me to think about another location because of the commute, we decided to actually try a whole new city and we moved to Las Vegas four years ago. And I saw the opportunity at the Trove Center. My experience is mostly with graduate students there. So I was really looking forward to having an opportunity to expand my expertise into the undergrad arena. And also with the Troost Center was really interesting is about five years ago, our center received a gift and we were renamed the Troost Center for Entrepreneurship Innovation. And with that gift, we're able to hire more faculty and more staff and really expand the offerings of our center to the students at UNLV. So even though we're housed at the Lee Business School, our center is actually open to all students, anyone interested in starting a business at UNLV. So all undergraduates, all graduates, we have workshops and competitions from the idea space if you have an idea, all the way to if you already have a business and want to get funding for that business. We offer a wide array of opportunities at the center for anywhere you are in the business planning ideas.

0:03:43
So what is an academic curriculum look like? With entrepreneurship, kind of give me some of the topics that you cover, maybe some of the ways that the information is disseminated to undergraduate students. Entrepreneurship is such a broad topic, and I'm curious, how do you have, what's your approach in developing this kind of type of curriculum and sharing with our students?

0:04:10
So, actually, the Church Center itself, we do have a major and minor in entrepreneurship, but that's run actually through our math, we have a department in our School of Business that focuses more on the curriculum aspect. The Church Center itself does co-curricular events. All of our events are in addition to academics that we provide to students. So, for example, workshops we provide is everything from, so we started something new last year is that students are interested in entrepreneurship and starting a business and wanting to understand what that was about, but didn't want to get a major or minor in entrepreneurship. So, some students are like, what is entrepreneurship? So, we've created programming from every phase from, we call it entrepreneurship boot camp. So it's actually starting off with, it's a three level experience for students. First one's like, what is an entrepreneur? How you define that? Just to get the basics of high level on understanding entrepreneurship. To, you know, session two is in regards to bringing an idea and determining if your idea is commercially viable. And that last stage of that boot camp, three is actually just how to pitch. How do you pitch your idea in an elevator pitch in 20 seconds? So we try and provide all levels of workshops for our students in regards to the co-curricular aspect of entrepreneurship.

0:05:25
And how long is the boot camp? And then how do students find out about the boot camp?

0:05:30
Yes, so there is actually three one-hour sessions. We're offering to offer it. We're actually in the middle right now offering. We had our first session. Our meetings right now are currently both in person and online. These sessions are we keep them small to about 20 students who are doing them in person currently. And then we're doing the first phase. We're now entering the second one for boot camp two. And then we'll finish that off on the three on February 16th. And then we'll launch the same program again later this semester. We try our hardest. One thing with our programming is that we try in a way to market to our students in multiple ways. So we actually have a website that we use called StartupTree. So if you go on unlv.startuptree.co, all of our events for the semester are laid out there and any student can sign up and register for those events. But one thing we did start last year in fall of 2021, which is really helpful for us, we created an undergraduate mentorship program called the Church Undergrad Scholars. That's open to all students as well to apply for. And with the mentorship program for one year, so we'll start the program again in fall of 2022. So we have currently eight students right now from all different majors. And we provide mentorship for opportunities for mentorship. We do the service learning component to the program as well. We connect them to entrepreneurs in the area who are doing it with their interest levels are. And we can really try and promote entrepreneurship to every student. It's hard to get attention of all students, so through the mentors, we're able to kind of get in front of multiple different all-student populations in different schools.

0:07:07
So those who go through the boot camp, maybe talk to us about what are their, I guess, what's the level of understanding they have about entrepreneurship coming into the boot camp? And then through the boot camp, how has that shifted as a result of the boot camp and the conversations that you have through the workshops?

0:07:22
The boot camp was designed for students that had very minimal knowledge of entrepreneurship. They just want, maybe they have a side hustle they want to continue working on, so it's a very, in a way, beginner level of entrepreneurship. We always had an existing workshop. We only offer workshops throughout the semester like how to develop a business plan. And we also offer workshops on how to do, how to create a business plan, as well as we offer competitions. But some students aren't ready to do that level yet. We want to be able to have a whole, the whole spectrum from beginning of entrepreneurship, having them think about what is an entrepreneur, that definition, as well as bringing an idea. And then once they complete that bootcamp, then they then feel ready to then go to another workshop that's more intensive on how to develop a business plan or more intensive workshop, or actually apply for one of our competitions, for example. So right now we're actually in the middle of recruiting for our business plan competition right now. It's actually open right now to all students. The application is available and is up and the competition deadline is Friday, February 25th. And this is all for students. Again, you don't have to have the business already ready to go. It's just if you have an idea for a business and you wanna get some funding for it, the top prize is $2,500 for first place, $1,500 for second place, third place is $500. And we have both the undergrad and graduate spectrum. So we have two, the prize money is the same for both undergrad and grad. And again, it's for an idea that you have and you want some funding for it. And in order to apply for this competition, you have to have a preliminary business plan. We have two workshops that we provide that go over what you need to include in your PowerPoint. You do exactly what you need to submit in your deck to apply for this competition. There's no pitching involved, it's just based on your deck to win that funding.

0:09:18
And could you, I know you've mentioned this is open to all students, could you talk a little bit about some of the characteristics of the students who do participate in these varying experiences? Like maybe, are they freshmen through seniors? I know you mentioned undergrad graduate students or from certain majors?

0:09:38
Of course, I would say that we actually right now, we are really expanding. So in our boot camps, for example, we have quite a few first year students who are in it. So we have students actually from all different majors, all different schools. So we have, I would say, in one workshop for the boot camp, it can be first year students who have undeclared to even a fourth year student in engineering who's thinking about doing something for the design program, but don't understand the business aspects of it. We have a whole wide with students in fine arts, as well as students from film, hospitality, because entrepreneurship really can be utilizing many different majors, right? You could be a dance major, but want to open your own dance studio. You didn't need the entrepreneurship aspect. That's why we're really trying to expand. Business entrepreneurship is really applicable to so many different degrees and so many different majors. But because I think we're housed in a business school, we have over-representation of business students. So even though we're a center open for everyone.

0:10:42
And for faculty and staff who might be interested in supporting this sort of work, how can they get involved?

0:10:49
So we actually have a council actually called the that we have that we're trying to recruit from all over. So we found out that there are people who study on particularly sure do entrepreneurs of different schools. And we try to when we see them, like in the UNLV today, that we try to contact them to get. They know who we are and collaborate with them. They can promote our programs and vice versa across the board as well. We have that council. We also do summer research stipends. So our center actually just extended it. We first did the research stipend in the Sheets School Business School, but now it's open to all faculty at UNLV who's doing research and entrepreneurship. And we do a summer stipend program as well that we provide stipends to faculty who are doing research and entrepreneurship. And through that last summer, in summer of 2021, we actually had faculty in life sciences and different schools, engineering, computer science, that had a spin on faculty entrepreneurship research that are now being funded by our center.

0:11:52
So talk to us about some of the business plans that have come from this program. Tell us about of ways that students have creatively launched or thinking about launching a way to do a business? So right now, the business plan competition I just talked about, this is the first year

0:12:10
we're doing it. So this is the first, this is inaugural business plan competition. So right now we are collecting this first batch of ideas. So this is actually a new program that we've just started. We hope to make this an annual event. So right now this is the first time we've done this business plan competition. We actually did in the fall 2021 semester, we actually did an ideas competition for students. So all you have to do is have a business idea. And we provide and we had four tracks that you could apply for in that competition itself. And we had four winners based on the check that we had for that. So we had four students that won $1,000 to take their basic, to take the idea that they had. And again, it was only based on their idea and go forward with that to hopefully work on their, take that idea and actually make it into a business.

0:13:03
So maybe share what some of those ideas were. What kind of ideas did our students share?

0:13:07
Let me grab that information for you. So for example, one of our students actually created something in the track of consumer products and services called Tour Guide, and it's a mobile application, which has two main users which are locals and travelers. I'm going to give you as much information as I can in regards to that.

0:13:32
A mobile app, huh.

0:13:33
Yeah, a mobile application. And then we had someone who was doing life, health and life sciences, and they wanted to create an organization that was a healthcare price database. And it'd be a price tool that people could use to make sure that they knew how much they were paying for the services they were getting from the healthcare providers. Because, you know, sometimes when you go to the healthcare provider, they don't have the exact cost for you. You wanted to create a database that would provide an area that you knew if you went to get this service from a medical provider, this is how much you are paying to get that service.

0:14:06
Oh, do we know about that? Oh, do we know about that? Wow, some really good practical ideas.

0:14:14
And Nadine, could you?

0:14:15
I'm gonna ask you who?

0:14:16
Go ahead.

0:14:17
Another company called 8-Bit Coding,

0:14:20
and they want to target lower income youth who have not exposed to this idea of tech-related career paths. We've had many different levels of everything from coding to healthcare services, to mobile travel apps, to actually pet daycares. So many different, a wide range of sector investments of having ideas for the Ideas to Plan competition.

0:14:45
And then Nadine, could you share a little bit of information or explain what the Blackstone Launchpad is?

0:14:51
Yes, the Blackstone Launchpad is actually an international organization. There's actually right now 45 campuses that are part of this Blackstone Launchpad. The Blackstone Launchpad, so we're one of those 45 schools. We and CSUN are the only ones in Nevada. In California, for example, all the UCs are involved. In New York, all the CUNY schools are involved. The state universities in New York are all involved. So they provide us with funding as well as mentorship and can really be a space that we, as an entrepreneurship center, has resources and we kind of do a dialogue with each other and get professional development from them to get mentorship and to make sure that, you know, what we're doing, we're kind of not in a silo. We see what other entrepreneurship centers are doing. They provide that connection for us and that networking for us.

0:15:41
So how unique is it that UNLV would have a program of this nature on its campus and a minority serving institution? Do you see these kind of programs cropping up around the land or are we really unique?

0:15:56
There's definitely, I think the opportunity is definitely there right now. The Blackstone Launchpad, actually, when it was created, they really ran out expanding their reach. So they actually wanted, because of our high level of diversity serving institution, that's one of the goals of Blackstone Launchpad. So really, we were an ideal institution that they wanted to collaborate with. So we just started collaboration, actually, in fall of 2021. And this will be a collaboration for the next three years.

0:16:30
And what are some of the deliverables from this initiative or this collaboration among all these players?

0:16:39
So some of the deliverables that we have to provide, well, the signature programming. So there's definitely programming that we as a Blackstone Launchpad school complete on behalf of the Blackstone Launchpad. So as my role as campus director for the Blackstone Launchpad, I make sure when they have an ideas competition, I share that out with the students as well as I can provide those opportunities to those students. So participation in the signature programming is the main component of being a Blackstone Launchpad school.

0:17:10
And could you talk a little bit about some of the research that's being conducted through the Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation?

0:17:19
I know it's excellent. We actually have a research director, who is Professor Yong Lee. He's actually the research director of the school, of the center itself. We bring in different lecturers to discuss that in the different areas. You go on our website, which is entrepreneurship.unlv.edu. We have a tab called Choice Scholars. And on that Choice Scholars page, we have identified our 2020 and 2021 faculty members we are working with across the campus and the research that they're doing. So for example, we have a faculty member, actually one who's working on a very interesting topic. I think it's actually called imposter syndrome, imposter among entrepreneurs. Entrepreneurs deal with many challenges and they think a lot of them deal with imposter syndrome. So he's assessing that in his paper. And that's what he uses as his guardian. We have someone working in computer science named Yuwan Kim, who's doing a paper called Developing a Secure Communication Scheme for Emerging Renewable Energy Systems. So we have a wide range of faculty and projects we are supporting at the center to promote entrepreneurship research across campus.

0:18:25
And could you talk a little bit about maybe any of the partnerships with local schools around just increasing entrepreneurship and business innovation curriculum development? That's actually what we do want to be working on right now at the center. We are staffing. We have their GAs and myself, and then we have a few faculty members.

0:18:38
But an area of the community we want to focus on is that collaboration. We have that's something we want to do more in the community right now. Our center has been developing. We focus more on the student, the student experience on campus. And we do do events with the community. Like we do something called Southern Nevada Business Plan Competition, where we do a big competition for community businesses to participate in. But collaboration in the K-12 arena is definitely an area we want to expand on.

0:19:10
And then for like faculty and students and community leaders who want to connect with the Trest Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation, could you share what's the best way for them to reach out to you or learn about some of the many things that you're doing?

0:19:26
Oh yeah, definitely.

0:19:27
I would just say the best way to, just one way to email us directly is entrepreneurship at unlv.edu. Both myself and our executive director, Lisa Martin, are always looking at different opportunities and watching and reviewing that as well. That definitely is the best way, I think, to communicate with us or contacting us by phone. But I think the email is the best way in regards to doing that, just because we're constantly monitoring it and are able to follow up based on the expertise and the questions that they're asking for.

0:19:58
So Nadine, when you look back on all the projects and the ways that you're helping to develop students, what is a win for you? What do you say, you know, I wake up every day hoping that students will walk away with what as a result of this program?

0:20:13
I'd say one is definitely just getting a better understanding of what they're, you know, if they want to start a business or they want to have an idea that we're able to give them the tools and need to help them with that idea. That's definitely one thing that we're able to do, really provide the opportunity. And also through, we actually take, we have site tours as part of our curriculum, our co-curricular events. We take them to different companies. We've taken our students to Blackfire Innovation at the Henry Reed Center, which is, you and I have been taking them to Freedom, which is a local business team out in business, taking them on a tour of that company, because that company had been so unique in that their sales side and their warehouse is in the same area. So they can see that the founder is not only the founder of it, but at times days that she needs to like help with the shipping, she's there to do that as well. So I wanted them to show them that, you know, entrepreneurs, it's the different levels that you'll need to do, as well as we took them over to the Cushing Center to meet with the owner of ST Life and how he built his company and how he started from the ground up and his trajectory. So it's really exposing students to entrepreneurship and the entrepreneurial journey of different individuals so they know what they need to do if that's something they wanna pursue.

0:21:32
And then what are the costs associated with any of these programs? Is it just free and open to all students or because you overwhelmingly have so many business students you know there might be an added advantage there

0:21:46
but are there any specific fees associated? No, it's free and open to all students. Okay. So there everything's open to all students and the competitions to apply for everything is a no cost. Yes, so even the students coming to running so if they're interested in applying for it, there's no cost to apply to our program. There's no cost for our site tours, no cost for our workshops. And also we do actually do a book club as well, where we do talk about different, we bring different entrepreneurs. We provide the book for free for no cost. During the pandemic, we mailed the book out to the students, and then we do a Q&A with the author at the end of the, at the given date, and all that is done at no cost to the student.

0:22:28
I'm curious, you know, when we look at entrepreneurs and, you know, women in the field, do you find that you have broad representation of both females as well as males in the program, as well as those that, you know, may not identify as either? you find that there's an even mixture of representation.

0:22:53
I didn't even find, for the speakers you bring in, do you mean, or do you?

0:22:58
Well, the students that participate in the boot camp or the students that participate in the other activities, because we know that women are often a minority as business owners owners and or may not necessarily be privy to some of these tools early on in their careers. And so I'm saying, do you see that there's a fair representation of both men and women in these opportunities reflected in the kinds of programs that you offer? Definitely. I think actually we look at the audience of our students, we have both demographic and gender.

0:23:38
I think I can't see my issue being with women actually.

0:23:41
Oh, good.

0:23:42
I'm a very strong representation of women in our program and I'm also very purposeful in how guest speakers as well. So whenever I bring in panelists and different, I always try to also be mindful of bringing in speakers of both genders as well. We had a very successful event in October of 2021 where I brought in the stories behind our business. I brought three successful all-female entrepreneurs and it was all-female panel. So I definitely positively tried to bring that to the forefront, so we had different challenges and bring that experience as well. So I think we do a really good job of trying to be as diverse with our speakers as well.

0:24:17
Well, we'll get you out of here in this final question.

0:24:20
Is there anything you would like to share with our listeners that we may not have asked, that you wish we had asked?

0:24:28
I think definitely, again, the website for all students is unlv.startuptree.co. Look at all the events we've had. Again, all of our services are co-curricular and free for students to attend. You know, if you have a business idea, there's no harm in applying for our business plan competition. Again, we'll have two undergraduate and a graduate track. And again, first prize is 2,500, second place is 1,500, and third place is 500. And one resource we also provide, we just opened it in November of 2021. One thing that's always spoken to me is professional clothing and different opportunities. We actually have a closet in front of her, a room we turned into a community closet where we have professionally free dry-clean clothes available to students to pick up at all times. That closet's open during the business hours, and there's actually quite a bit of clothing right now that's all been dry-cleaned. And it's available for students if they ever need it for a quick meeting or if they want to, you know, grab something, special clothing, there's no questions asked, and this is available for students.

0:25:34
Rene, this was very informative. What were some of your takeaways since you didn't have the privilege of studying entrepreneurship through all of your many degrees?

0:25:44
I'm really impressed with this program and looking forward to seeing how it's going to develop. They had the IDEA kickoff program, and now they're going to advance this platform. And so I'm really looking forward to hearing about our students and all the programs and ideas they have for entrepreneurship. I like that there's equal representation because we know being a minority business owner can be very, very hard, especially, you know, as a woman, so that the students are getting those tools, so they can be competitive and be quick-witted and ready to change the game as it relates to entrepreneurship amongst female business owners. And I'm also glad to see that there are other resources like this professional closet where there is dry cleaning clothes that are ready for students to use as they begin to level up and get ready for the professional world and the attire that's needed to present yourself so that you can be taken seriously about your business plan and ideas. So I think these are great tools that our students are able to receive.

0:26:53
It's free.

0:26:54
I mean, it's free. And then as I was listening to Nadine about these awards and prizes, $2,500? And that's a nice, sizable prize for a well-executed plan that's shared. And so really glad to have Nadine on the show and to share how this Tres Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation is providing a wealth of opportunities for our students.

0:27:18
Yeah, Renee, and I think you said it all, and I would just add, you know, one of the takeaways for me is just hearing more about that, the boot camp.

0:27:24
Yes.

0:27:25
And how it just prepares students who are interested in entrepreneurship and helps them with, you know, how to start a business, do a business plan, pitching their idea, determine whether it's viable commercially or not. So those are some of the takeaways I had in addition to what you shared.

0:27:42
You know, I think that options like this help our students understand that, you know, you kind of like fell forward. You know, you you kind of learn how to articulate your skills, articulate your plans, you get feedback, you get your confidence increases. And I think, you know, that is just worth so much and things that you really cannot all the time get necessarily in the classroom. So these co-curricular opportunities that are being offered is a wonderful way to complement the education that's happening and the research that's taking place, too. I was also impressed by the research that she shared in her presentation.

0:28:19
And you know, you jogged the memory, is this also thinking about the future partnerships partnerships that they're going to be pursuing to help K-12 or other community-based organizations or populations that may not actually come to UNLV to still be able to have some sort of curriculum that reflects preparing students for entrepreneurship should they choose that

0:28:39
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0:28:53
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