March Update

Posted on Monday, March 24th, 2014

It’s near the end of March.

Whew!… March is one month that always seems to move fast! This is the month where, in additional to our usual tasks, we start planning the summer projects.

It’s too bad that outsiders don’t get a chance to see the behind-the-scenes work we do for the summer projects. It involves a significant amount of ‘intra-preneurship.’

We need to:

  • Meet company clients and learn what they’re looking for
  • Seek suitable research assistants (students) who are interested in the projects and who can handle the needed tasks
  • Identify professors who might be interested to become ‘principle investigators’ (PIs) and to lead a student team over the summer
  • Negotiate project scope with PI and the company, in order to set realistic goals and milestones
  • Identify sources of necessary cash to support the project and write appropriate funding applications, and…
  • Finally—hopefully—sign-off on legal documents with the company partner

Since each company is unique, the behind-the-scenes work in setting up projects is always varied and unpredictable. You can always count on surprises.

This year, we have a big surprise that comes in the form of some smiling Brazilian students. They’re here on an exchange program and they’re seeking work terms for the summer. This creates the opportunity for us at Applied Research to engage the visitors in our summer projects. The Brazilians not only have excellent credentials, they’re also under salary from their home-country exchange programs! They could be amazing additions to our in-house student teams and their participation could enrich our student’s experience as well as assist the company partners.

Note-to-self. New task: “meet the Brazilians and investigate possible matches to the summer projects.” If the match looks good, I had better contact the company client and see if they’re ok with it!

Riccardo Brun del Re

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