Idea Lab
Idea Lab 2013
Idea Lab is a student-run project incubator that helps transform OSU students’ ideas into reality. By providing up to $3,000 in project support and guidance through the implementation process, we are able to fuse innovative education and practical experience to grow their concepts.
Projects are evaluated under a variety of criteria. Please consider the following questions when developing your proposal: Is this project innovative? How does this project impact or benefit OSU students and/or the community? Does this project have scholastic value? Does this project have a feasible timeline? Is your budget realistic? Are you utilizing a diverse body of resources?
See the Idea Lab Archives for past projects.
Questions? Check out the FAQ page or email uasidealab@gmail.com.
About Idea Lab
Since the program began in 2008, Idea Lab has helped more than a dozen student ideas come to fruition. Any Ohio State University student from any department is encouraged to submit a proposal during open application periods.
When a proposed idea is accepted, students will work with Idea Lab’s creative staff to cultivate the project, product, or event. Idea Lab participants are expected to attend skill building workshops held throughout the spring semester to aid in strategic planning, attend meetings during the development of their project, and present their project at the Idea Lab Reception in April. Through this process, Idea Lab seeks to generate Ohio State graduates capable of problem solving and idea development.
This year, Idea Lab is supported by OSU Energy Services and Sustainability, the Fisher College of Business Center for Entrepreneurship*, The Arts Initiative, and the Department of Arts Administration, Education and Policy. Community leaders and representatives from each of the supporting entities will comprise the 2013 selection panel.
*Applicants with entrepreneurial project submissions have the option to be considered for special funding from the Center for Entrepreneurship. The recipient of the Entrepreneurship Award will automatically be entered into the second round of the Center's Business Plan Competition.
The type of support available through Idea Lab varies by proposal, but can include:
• Financial support
• Marketing and advertising assistance
• Budgeting help
• Time management advice
• Brainstorming development
• Technical and aesthetic expertise
• Collaboration experience
• Problem solving strategies
• Audience development
2013 Idea Lab Winners
Billy Two Shoes
Josh Coy, First Year Graduate, Arts Policy and Administration
Award: $1000
Billy Two Shoes is an informal, not-for-profit band of musicians formed in early 2008. The band personally produces all their material, merchandise, and shows and donates 100% of the proceeds to food pantries across the Appalachian regions of Ohio, Kentucky, Indiana, and West Virginia. They have self-produced four studio albums of original music and donated over $21,000 to food pantries. To help sustain the vision and further the goals, the band is applying for 501(c)3 nonprofit status. Official nonprofit status will solidify Billy Two Shoes as a valid social/cultural entrepreneurial effort in the community, while also opening up the needed financial benefits of grant seeking from arts councils and tax incentives for our donors, supporters, and venues.
Citizen Artist Dine and Dialogue Initiative
Kate Collins, Third Year Graduate, Arts Education
Award: $1000
After a fourteen week process exploring arts practices that prioritize discursive exchange and community building, 8 OSU undergraduate arts students working in partnership with approximately 12 Transit Arts youth (ages 15 to 21) will create a small series of works for a site-specific public presentation. Part of their work together will involve hosting a community dialogue breakfast series at the Central Community House, where Transit is based, to engage the public in dialogue about challenging public issues. The youth and college students will then use these new insights to create an array of dialogic, collaborative and participatory works in a public setting of their choosing so as to further public dialogue and understanding on the issue. This series of small projects will experiment with social practices and working across artistic disciplines. The group includes a talented array of both visual and performing artists, so the final products may vary greatly with some performance-based and some more visual-art oriented.
Dumarka Soomaaliyeed Voices Unveiled
Ruth Smith, Third Year Graduate, Arts Education
Award: $500
“Dumarka Soomaaliyeed” is a participatory photography project and exhibition that began in May 2012. A group of young Somali Women were interviewed and photographed in order to explore the way they experience and understand their role in the community. The resulting photos and stories were displayed at the Northern Lights Public Library through April, 2013. The ladies are interested in developing a website to extend the project to a wider audience and house the Columbus exhibit as well as future participatory photography projects with women in other cities and create an interactive platform for others to upload their own photos and stories.
Phone Fiction: Texted Stories
J. Preston Witt, Second Year Graduate, Creative Writing: Fiction
Award: $500 (Entrepreneurship Award)
Literary magazines have small distributions and can’t afford to pay authors or editors. Phone Fiction is a publishing experiment that hopes to remedy this situation by getting the right stories to the right readers, by paying authors for successful short stories, and by providing a platform that helps literary magazines work together. Phone Fiction is building a Smartphone application that can be described as a blend of Pandora and Kickstarter for short fiction. The project hopes to support unknown authors and devoted literary magazines through a fresh, smart, socially integrated publishing platform.
