The Incubator@SMU is excited to announce that we are a client of SMU’s Boulevard Consulting! Kim Commerato (faculty of CCPA in Meadows) will lead her students through an experiential, capstone-level, real-life exercise to help the Incubator deliver an exciting—and effective—public relations, media relations and branding plan. The Incubator currently has over 50 companies led by undergraduate and graduate students, alumni, faculty and staff. Who knows about the amazing work achieved by our companies and the potential of the Incubator itself? Not as many as we hope to reach. We are looking forward to changing this through the plan and support that this amazing opportunity will achieve. Professor Commerato and the students of Fall 2021 cohort of Boulevard Consulting—thank you for this amazing opportunity!
Category: Offices & Programs
[Dallas, Texas July 2021] — Irewole (Wole) Akande is an Engineer and Entrepreneur. Currently a full time MBA candidate at Southern Methodist University (SMU), Irewole Akande, is leveraging innovative technology to save lives and reduce the spread of infectious diseases around the world through his healthcare technology startup – City Health Tech. Co-founded by Akande and Northwestern University alumnus, Ibraheem Alinur, in 2017, City Health Tech has developed cutting-edge wireless handwashing technology to guide users through effective handwashing techniques, improve hygienic behaviors, and use data collected to prevent the spread of diseases in the community.
In early 2021, Akande had an unfortunate bout with COVID-19. It occurred when so many good things were happening. City Health Tech had just got their first investor, and the company was to launch their product development of their first product Opal™. Unfortunately, COVID set product development back by over three months.
In Akande’s words: “After the initial disease passed, I was hit with a second round of long-haul symptoms that have severely affected my heart with little to no medical explanations on what is going on or if I’d ever be able to run again. As a result, I have developed severe health anxiety. This feeling is especially crippling because I had never fallen ill before COVID.”
As soon as Akande got good enough, he threw myself right back into working on City Health Tech Inc. with a very different mindset. One of a survivor with a burning desire to prevent others from experiencing what he and millions around the world did. “Prevention is better than cure,” has a whole new meaning to him. And protecting his community is a vision that now defines him.
He insists: “The future of healthcare is prevention. The future of healthcare is public health. The future of healthcare is technology. Do not let anyone tell you otherwise. And whatever winding path I take, I will keep me building the future of disease prevention technology.” And he is committed to his goal as in less than a month, City Health Tech will be releasing their first batch of products to strategic partners in the food handling, life sciences, and education spaces.
Akande, is a recipient of the Lucy Billingsley Future Texas Business Legend Award from the prestigious Texas Business Hall of Fame (TBHF). The award is presented to the best and brightest business student entrepreneurs in Texas that exhibit entrepreneurial aspirations and a propensity for leadership and innovation.
City Health Tech is promoting health literacy and more hygienic habits while collecting informative data through its proprietary and revolutionary IoT health communication device, Opal. Opal is a digital assistant that allows schools and organizations to analyze, track, and encourage healthy hand hygiene practices in their community through a variety of health communication/programming. By installing Opal in schools, office buildings, hotels, restaurants, life science buildings, and food manufacturing facilities, customers can encourage healthier habits within their space and collect key hygiene data that can be leveraged to better prevent the spread of infectious diseases.
The company which recently relocated to North Texas is looking to deepen its connections within the state of Texas. The founders were selected as one of only 7% of applicants into Newchip’s (based out of Austin, TX) competitive seed accelerator program. They hope to develop the company and expand their fundraising capabilities with expert mentors as they raise their seed round from angel investors or venture capitalists.
Akande credits the Southern Methodist University for providing him a unique space to grow and scale City Health Tech. Being in Texas has allowed him to tap into the unique resources and opportunities provided by the state. The company is looking for partners and investors within the North Texas area as they look to grow and scale their company.
Contact: Irewole Akande | City Health Tech
Phone: 3125326660
Email: irewole@cityhealthtech.com | partner@cityhealthtech.com
Raleigh Dewan is a junior at SMU double majoring in Creative Writing and Marketing with a concentration in Entrepreneurship and minors in Italian, History, and Public Policy and International Affairs. At SMU, Raleigh is a Hunt Leadership Scholar, BBA Scholar, Hilltop Scholar, Pre-Law Scholar, Hegi Career Leader, and a member of the University Honors Program. On the hilltop, Raleigh serves as the Internal Development Chair of Program Council, a member of the Campus Services Student Advisory Board, and is President of the Engaged Learning Student Board.
Raleigh is the founder of Sister Shaq Sweet Tea—a sweet tea company that uses confession worthy, American-grown tea to expand local awareness of human trafficking and empower its victims to regain their independence. He believes the knowledge and experience from participating in the Tower Scholars Program will allow him to better comprehend and advocate for the most effective public policy aimed at fighting human trafficking.
For more about Sister Shaq’s, visit Sister Shaq’s Website
Dear SMU Faculty,
After receiving faculty feedback about how we collect early and mid-term grade reports, we have made some minor changes to the process this year. In the past, we only asked for designated student populations during the early intervention period. Faculty indicated this often left them wondering what to do about the other students in their class who were at risk and communicated it was more difficult to record the information for only a subset of students. Therefore, beginning this fall we will ask you to identify at risk students in the early intervention period for all undergraduate students.
You will receive a notification from the Registrar’s Office that early intervention (EPR) grade rosters are open on Wednesday, September 21 and are due on Tuesday, September 28 at midnight. Mid Term (MPR) grade rosters will be open Friday, October 15 and are due on Sunday, October 24 at midnight.
The second piece of feedback we received from faculty is that you often do not have a graded assignment prior to having to report EPR grades. We understand this and therefore suggest that performance measures can include participation, attendance, and/or a grade. What is most important is that you, as faculty report a deficiency when a student needs to know that their grade or engagement in a course is deficient. You can make this distinction by selecting FA “Failure to Attend” or FT “Failure due to Testing”. Instructors with graded assignments might instead choose to enter deficient letter grades C-, D+, D-, F or indicate that the student does not currently have a deficient grade.
These early reports provide an excellent time to remind students about course expectations and to positively acknowledge what has already been accomplished. In addition to your efforts, outreach from academic advisors and academic support personnel takes place for students who have multiple deficiencies. We hope to reach students who struggle in the early parts of the semester in order to offer resources to turn around their academic performance and experience.
Thank you for helping us to make the process better. And thank you, in advance, for your assistance!
Best,
Dr. Sheri Kunovich
Calendar for Grade Reporting
Early Intervention (EPR) grade rosters open from September 21-28 at midnight
Mid Term (MPR) grade rosters open from October 15-24 at midnight
Pamela Bailey, who works in the Center on Research and Evaluation in Simmons, recently formed a non-profit, AnteDia Folkways and Humanities Preservation Society!
Bailey is a nationally published author, a singer-songwriter, podcaster, filmmaker, and a self-described “Carolina Daughter” living in Dallas, Texas. She is descended from enslaved people from the Pee Dee region of South Carolina. Her projects afford her opportunities to collaborate with scholars in the US and internationally on the subject of forced migration of American-born enslaved people and the lasting effects of forced family separations on their descendants.
For more about Pamela, visit BigFamilySearch.com
Rodman Steele (BA Music ’18) is rapidly growing his music studio based in the Incubator@SMU. With a growing roster of teachers, the Rodman Steele Studio is hosting live events and offering home and studio lessons for guitar, bass, vocals, production, drums, and musical theatre. Turn it up to 11!
Hamiz Mushtaq Awan, founder and partner, Plutus21 Capital, recently spoke on NTX Inno panel about Blockchain and cryptocurrency. Watch the panel below:
For more, visit: NTXInno.com
Panel
– Natalie Smolenski, Head of Business Development, Hyland Credentials and Executive Board Member, Texas Blockchain Council
– Mance Harmon, co-founder and CEO, Hedera Hashgraph
– Hamiz Mushtaq Awan, founder and partner, Plutus21 Capital
– Moderator: Kevin Cummings, Staff Reporter, NTX Inno
SMU in Four – SMU’s Quality Enhancement Plan (QEP) – is the University’s comprehensive approach to improving SMU’s retention and four-year graduation rates. Over the last five years, 73% of our undergraduate students graduate in four years, and we have consistent gaps across race and socio-economic status. We need everyone’s help to improve the graduation rate and to close these equity gaps. To this end, SMU in Four strategies build upon existing University practices to address the needs of all SMU students and ultimately lead them to greater levels of success. One such existing University practice is the use of our campus’s course management system, Canvas. A key step in the SMU in Four plan for the fall of 2021 is to continue making use of Canvas to support our students.
The plan below was built by a team of faculty and administrators from all five undergraduate schools. In addition, we paid close attention to Student Senate Resolution S-106-14 which asks for greater standardization across Canvas courses and consistent employment of basic features.
Starting this fall, all 3-credit courses offered as part of the undergraduate curriculum (with the exception of independent studies) are required to include three technical features of Canvas to meet our goals:
- Syllabus tool to post the course information so that students have access to all of their course syllabi on Canvas.
- Calendar tool so that students can keep up to date on assignment due dates and other time-sensitive course information such as when exams are scheduled.
- Gradebook tool to record grades so that that students have access to their ongoing progress.
To help you support these elements of the SMU in Four initiative, we have asked the Office of Information Technology (OIT) to create a new, simplified web support portal that includes detailed help guides as well as a schedule of upcoming support and training events. A coordinated communications plan will commence in July to inform you of support and help options as you prepare for fall 2021. In addition, the Center for Teaching Excellence (CTE) is available to provide deep instructional design and teaching support to assist you with fall semester planning. If you need any help at all, please do not hesitate to reach out early!
Based on our experiences from the last many months, we are well equipped to leverage Canvas’ technology tools to better orient all modes of instruction to the academic needs and expectations of our students. I know we will help SMU make significant progress on important SMU in Four retention initiatives and appreciate your support.
Sincerely,
Elizabeth G. Loboa, PhD
Provost and Vice President for Academic Affairs
Southern Methodist University
https://www.smu.edu/provost
The 2021 Big iDeas Business Plan Competition was held on February 26th. Congratulations to the following winners:
ANIM
Founder, Manov Janim ’22
College+
Founder, Sean Suberu ’22
Curlē
Founder, Mona El-Gharby ’21
EZ Tutor
Founder, Aryan Bhatnager ’22
Panacea
Madison McMahan ’22
spotBOX
Founder, Sonia Saeed ’23
Sister Shaq’s Sweet Tea
Founder, Raleigh Dewan ’23