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INSPIRING PROGRAMS:
Dunin-Deshpande Queen’s Innovation Centre The Queen’s Innovation Connector began in 2012 as a joint effort by the Faculty of Engineering and Applied Science and the Smith School of Business. It has evolved into a pan-university initiative under the Office of the Provost and VicePrincipal (Academic) with strong continuing support from its founding faculties. Through a variety of programs, services, and resources, the Dunin-Deshpande Queen’s Innovation Centre encourages, enables, and supports the innovation activities of students, professors, entrepreneurs, and Canadian companies. Since its founding, and with the support of generous campaign donors, the Dunin-Deshpande Queen’s Innovation Centre has worked with and supported fifty ventures. Twenty-eight of them are still operating. Program update: October 31, 2016 Innovation and entrepreneurship programming at Queen’s University has received support from distinguished alumni. The Dunin Foundation—established by Andrew Dunin, Sc’83, MA’87, and his wife Anne Dunin, Artsci’83— and Gururaj “Desh” Deshpande, PhD’79, and his wife Jaishree Deshpande jointly have provided a significant gift to the Queen’ s Innovation Connector. In recognition of this support, the university-wide initiative to support student innovation and entrepreneurship will now be known as the Dunin-Deshpande Queen’s Innovation Centre. “Universities will play a different and an important role in the 21st century; they have to be relevant to the world and have both social and economic impact,” says Dr. Deshpande. “I am pleased that Queen’s University is taking a lead to make innovation and entrepreneurship be a part of its DNA and redefine the role of universities in Canada.” In the words of Mr. Dunin, “Students and graduates will be creating jobs, not just taking jobs.”
Q&A with Shelby Yee: A winning pitch leads Queen’s grad to a new career
The Complete Engineer sat down with Shelby Yee, Sc’16, a member of the winning team at the 2016 Queen’s Innovation Connector Summer Initiative (QICSI) competition, to find out what the program meant for her and how it’s shaping her career. CE: Congratulations to you and your team on winning the QICSI pitch competition. What’s next for RockMass Technologies? SY: We’re in the office every day, working toward a bold goal of getting our first sales by March 2017. Right now, product development is our first and foremost focus. On the business end we’re obtaining funding, growing our network, and finishing up on some market research. We are busy applying
to the government grants, in addition to seeking out a small amount of private investment. The mining industry is actually a fairly connected and collaborative community, so we have been building our network in Kingston and Sudbury. We have a lot of work ahead of us, but it’s the best job we could all ask for, and we’re excited to be building a company from the ground up! CE: What important lessons did you take away from the program? SY: As a team, we’d be asked to develop new reports, dive deep into market research, and present in front of potential clients at a moment’s notice. It’s critical that we worked as a team to do so, and it usually meant picking up a task you had no idea how to approach and figuring out how to do it— as quickly and effectively as possible. Adaptability was key, and a major lesson I learned was don’t be afraid to ask for advice when you need to. CE: What would you like to say to those who have donated funds to support the program?
Shelby Yee, Sc’16
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THE COMPLETE ENGINEER
SY: Thank you! If you asked me to look back and see what shaped my university experience the most, it would be the QICSI program and the executive team’s support.
