2018 Northeast Ohio STEM Commercialization, Entrepreneurship & Innovation Forums

During 2018, high school and middle school students attend one of a series of STEM Entrepreneurship & Innovation Forums at seven different Northeast Ohio colleges and universities. Students attending the Forums participated in an extraordinary program that opened their eyes to new possibilities, inspired them to "think outside the box," and provided them with an opportunity to interact with professional STEM entrepreneurs and researchers.

At the Forum, students heard a number of speakers talk about how innovations will impact the future. After listening and interacting with the speakers, students, assisted by college mentors, worked in teams to develop a new product, service or problem-solving innovation idea that they later pitched “Shark Tank style” to their peers.

We encourage teachers to share the speakers' short talks with their students to help them prepare for the future. Individually and collectively these “TED-like” short talks will open your students' eyes to the future, inspire them to “think outside the box” and challenge them to think about how to prepare themselves for their future. Each Forum began with the video "Are You Ready for the Future" (see above) which set the stage for the talks that followed. We encourage teachers to first show the Are You Ready video to their students to similarly set the stage for the talks that they will view.