Out of the 27 members of the most recent cohort for VentureWell’s Course and Program Grant, three of the faculty and staff members from U.S. universities are from Kentucky.
The grants, which totaled more than $638,300, were awarded to faculty and staff selected solely on the potential for their STEM-based courses and programs to inspire ideas to address real-world challenges — and supply students with enough entrepreneurial skills where they would eventually have the acumen needed to go to market when the time is right.
Recently, one of the recipient schools, Kentucky State University, announced that Chinonso Etumnu had received $14,000 to build out a discussion series: “KSU FutureBred Forums: Stimulating Freshman Entrepreneurship.”
The grant will be matched with funds from KSU to allow the series to run from February through August 2024, in which first-year students will be afforded the opportunity to meet mentors, innovators and founders in science and technology fields — while gaining insight into the trends and opportunities within those areas of study.
Etumnu, who is an assistant professor of agribusiness marketing, joined the faculty at the Frankfort institution in July. The series will be presented by the KSU College of Agriculture, Community, and Sciences, in collaboration with KSU’s Office of the President.
“We are encouraged by VentureWell’s recognition of our commitment to empower students with the experiences that will help propel their career, personal, and community success,” said Ronald A. Johnson, Kentucky State interim president, in a release.
“The FutureBred Forums represent the first step in a broader effort to energize innovation and entrepreneurial activities across the university by connecting with public and private partners for the benefit of our students and our community,” said Johnson in a release. “The forums are an essential part of our overall strategy to restore, realign, and reignite an intended future for KSU.”
The grant will allow for further development of a mandatory course that is already in circulation: “Navigating the Technological World,” in which first-year students are exposed to concepts and conversations about the state’s and the university’s overall entrepreneurial ecosystems.
In addition, Johnathan Mills — the chair of the Department of Product Design at the University of Kentucky — was awarded grant funding for the creation of a new multidisciplinary course that will involve both the College of Design and College of Engineering, in which undergraduate students will be taught to implement entrepreneurship into product design.
The state’s third grant recipient was Nicholas Caporusso, an assistant professor of computer science at Northern Kentucky University. Caporusso is working on a new take on a course within NKU’s College of Informatics that will incorporate social and technology entrepreneurship by having students create projects to address challenges in sustainability and accessibility.
The VentureWell Course & Program Grants Program offers a cap of $30,000 in grant funding to a faculty or staff member. It is unclear how much Mills and Caporusso were awarded.
Besides funding, grantees also receive training, coaching, and peer networking opportunities for the support of their work.
To date, VentureWell — a nonprofit organization formerly known as the National Collegiate Inventors and Innovators Alliance — has awarded more than $18 million in grants to support course and program development since 1996. The organization has funded 764 courses and programs which have been taken by more than 45,000 students at over 360 colleges and universities.
