Forum: Smart Campus
SMART CAMPUS/HNRC 300VH-003
TUESDAYS, 5:30-8:30 p.m., SPRING 2019
BREWER HUB
Students: here is the Honors College Forum application form. The deadline to apply is 11:59 p.m. Thursday, October 25, 2018.
What’s a Smart University?
First, it’s a total community effort. It’s a fully engaged University ecosystem working together to connect its students, its faculty, its administration and the surrounding community to create a smarter, safer and more inclusive environment. It’s a public, private and academic partnership. A Smart University makes community connectivity a reality and takes this community connectivity to an unprecedented level.
Importantly, a Smart University connects its physical places—trails and sidewalks, buildings, athletic facilities, retail, roads and parking lots—through a system of sensors, mobile apps and data driven integrated databases living on the cloud—to local innovators working across campus. A common technology platform is the backbone of this utility, bridging the physical with the digital in an entrepreneurial ecosystem, harnessing those among us who have the insight and drive to design, build and deploy civic-minded technologies. It’s hyper-local, connecting ecosystems across our region with central oversight driving cohesive experiences across the region, with the capability to partner with other entrepreneurial communities that are growing around the world.
What Are Potential Applications?
There are dozens of applications for the University of Arkansas campus, but to start, we’ll consider the following:
- Student engagement—contextual messaging to students to drive attendance to class, events, meetings, etc through mobile messaging and gamification motivation and AR/VR capabilities.
- Fan engagement—again contextual messaging at events and on university locations spanning from interesting facts about the players to the ability to order food/drink and have it delivered to your seat.
- Marketing, mobile payment for all campus “retail” locations and data collection on traffic patterns, usage periods, menu variations....
- Smart trails/bike trails with messaging capabilities for obstructions, traffic, events, emergencies...
What’s In It For You?
- Lead the design effort to define the prioritized Smart Campus capabilities and the resources required to implement them.
- Discover the hardware, software applications being currently deployed across the global creating smart cities, smart airports, smart art centers, etc.
- Meet smart city subject matter experts deeply involved in real world problem solving including data management, privacy, IOT, sensor tech, etc.
What’s Expected of You?
- Bring your vision of what you’d like the world to become given the incredible speed of technology advancements
- Be prepared to work on deeply cross functional teams comprising students from engineering, business, architecture, behavioral sciences, art and communication.
About Rick Webb:
Dr. Rick Webb is the Cofounder and Director of Grit Studios in Bentonville. He earned his Ph.D. in Industrial Engineering. He is a successful entrepreneur and small business owner of Webb & Shirley (1984-1999). He has served in multiple Senior Vice President level roles with Walmart (2004-2015) and was the winner of the Walton Entrepreneur Award in 2009. Dr. Webb was inducted into the Oklahoma State University Engineering Hall of Fame in 2013. He is the recipient of the Industrial Engineering Institute Captain of Industrial Award in 2014. He is highly engaged in community service including serving on the Children's Shelter Board, working with the AR Research Alliance, serving as an ARK Challenge Mentor, as well as a DREAM Board Member.
About Jeannette Balleza Collins:
Jeannette Balleza Collins has supported entrepreneurs and non-profits for years through organizations like Winrock International, Startup Junkie, Terrapin Consulting and Northwest Arkansas Council. Honored as one of Arkansas's 50 Influentials by Arkansas Times , she directed The ARK Challenge technology accelerator from 2012-15, cofounded Tonic Regional Funds and provides consulting through Terrapin Consulting and her own company Scribe Marketing. She advises the Fayetteville Innovation Council and is Cofounder of Grit Studios in Bentonville.