The Beginning
William L. Hwang


Every fire starts with a small spark. In December 2002, winter break of my freshman year in college, I was organizing my old school stuff when I came upon a lot of old memories from summer programs I had attended in the past. As I flipped through scrapbook after scrapbook, I realized the true impact that many of these programs had on me. From the Hands on Science program in elementary school to the Research Science Institute (RSI) at MIT in high school, these summer programs largely shaped my goals and interests. I was really lucky to have had the chances to attend, and I wondered how different I would be if I happened not to have gone to the Blair Magnet Program or RSI. These special programs, born out of someone’s imagination and hard work, changed, reshaped, and influenced me in amazing ways. They helped me focus and reorient my priorities; they opened my eyes to new and exciting possibilities. With a smile I saluted them in my mind.

I decided right then that I needed to devote myself to something that could bring opportunities like the ones I had to the underprivileged children that needed it the most. The formulation of the InnoWorks program is a reflection of how I have approached my education. I’ve always been excited by cross-disciplinary interactions and making connections between seemingly unrelated fields and theories. The first part of the structure designed was the idea of having group activities as the primary learning experiences, and collaborative, team-based competitive missions as the means to inspire the students to actively use and extend upon the knowledge gained from the learning activities.

After letting the idea of InnoWorks cultivate in my mind for a few weeks, a group of my friends gathered in the dining room of my parent’s home in Maryland. Most of them were quite enthusiastic about my vision for the program, but we only had a vague sense of the work that was ahead of us. From the onset, I wanted our program to be conducted by college students because I felt that we could connect with the middle-school students more profoundly if they did not think of our program as just another appendage of school. I also wanted to eventually expand our program to one at the national and perhaps even international scope in order to maximize our societal impact. Another key decision from the get-go was that everyone in the organization would be a volunteer; we do it because we care. This to me was a necessity to foster the true spirit of volunteerism. Also, programs would have to be entirely free of charge for the InnoWorks students, including equipment, food, books, T-shirts, awards, and transportation. If a student wanted to participate, we wanted nothing to stand in his or her way.

The initial ideas that were drawn up were arranged as a sequence of daily workshops that each dealt with a different topic. The team structure of one mentor and three to four students was also established at this time. The program was named “InnoWorks” as a reflection of this program structure – Innovative Workshops. After dividing up some preliminary tasks, the meeting ended with a lot of enthusiasm.

I knew two people I could always count on – my parents. They have been volunteering in the community through Chinese Culture and volleyball programs for over 19 years now, and I turned to them for advice on how to proceed. As we started looking for the financial and in-kind sources that would be necessary to implement such a program, we quickly ran into a roadblock. Most corporate sponsors would not even consider us if we did not have 501(c)(3) non-profit status.

The summer of 2003 was when we hoped to have our first program, but that didn’t pan out. However, InnoWorks never strayed far from my consciousness; whatever I was doing or wherever I was always helped me develop new ideas for the program. Having just finished a great first semester in Duke’s Exploring the Mind FOCUS program in which we built robots using Lego™ Mindstorm Robotics Kits, I thought that as a collective theme of exploration, robotics would be a terrific one. So rather than having the collection of workshops with various topics, I decided we would try using the robotics kits as a medium through which we could explore many other fields, ranging from ecology to biomechanics. I began writing a proposal for the program with guidance from Beth Barak of the Lucent Global Science Scholars Program. The budget for the program was over $20,000.

Over the next year we faced the arduous task of applying for 501(c)(3) status under the guidance of Mrs. Li-Min Lee, CPA, followed by a long waiting period. Finally, on January 15, 2004, we received word. We were now an official 501(c)(3) non-profit organization—United InnoWorks Academy, Inc.

I recall excitedly walking into my BME 101 class soon after we became an organization and approached three friends that I had come to admire and respect greatly in the short year we had known each other: Matthew Mian, Daniel Kaplan, and Vineet Agrawal. I pitched the idea to them and they almost immediately saw the potential and Matt and Dan agreed to join. Vineet seemed equally excited, but unfortunately for us, he was already booked for the entire summer, but he would later play an integral role in the development of the program as we entered our second year. Around the same time, I talked to Jessica Manson, with whom I had been in FOCUS and we actually worked on the robotics project together. She also liked the idea, and agreed to help with its development and serve as a mentor in the program.

The next task was to decide the venue for our program. I decided as an unknown organization, our best bet was to ask the Montgomery County Department of Recreation to donate us use of some of their facilities. I was quite familiar with the facilities that they offered through the years I helped my parents with their summer camps. Billie Wilson, Cindy Cheamitru, and Mark Galiano were especially helpful; they liked the InnoWorks vision and allowed us to use the Scotland Community Center free of charge. Most of our students would come from the local community and others would be nominated from local schools. We set our program dates for August 16-20, 2004 and I began communicating with the director of the community center, Mr. Anthony Edghill.

At around the same time, I approached the Director of Undergraduate Studies in Electrical and Computer Engineering, Professor Gary Ybarra, whom I knew was very involved with K-12 outreach in engineering through programs such as Techtronics. He immediately became our faculty advisor and over the spring semester and summer of 2004 we interacted on a constant basis and he was an integral part of transitioning InnoWorks from a set of ideas to a realizable program. He wrote a letter for me to help obtain a President’s Research Grant from Duke and also provided 10 Lego™ Mindstorm Robotics Kits. Another key advisor that I met was Paul Klenk, a Mechanical Engineering graduate student that was extremely dedicated to K-12 outreach programs. He was co-director for the Techtronics program at Duke and proved to be an invaluable source of help and advice over the next two years.

With the help and support of all of these people, InnoWorks was born and we launched our inaugural program, “InnoWorks 2004: Roboventions”. The summer of 2004 was a busy time as we developed and implemented our program. The Roboventions program was extremely well-received, and we were asked by the Montgomery County Department of Recreation to come back. One student wrote two special letters to us at the end of the program to express her feelings regarding InnoWorks. An excerpt follows:

“Thanks for creating this fantastic opportunity to learn about robotics and the Lego kits. I really enjoyed this class, and further appreciate robotics because of it. The set-up was fantastic, and our group, aside from the minor computer dilemma, had everything we needed, which was great. I would definitely do something like this again. So, thanks again for all of your effort and commitment towards making this class educational and fun (and rarely do those two words go together).”

We also received letters of appreciation from the Director of the Montgomery County Department of Recreation and the Director of the Scotland Community Center.


InnoWorks Today and in the Future


Overall, the first two years of InnoWorks have been highly successful. InnoWorks has been profiled by CBS, NBC, ABC, Duke News & Communication, The Herald Sun, Duke Chronicle, Duke Dialogue, Maryland Gazette, LT Today, DukEngineer Magazine, and is featured on the 2005-2006 Duke Basketball Halftime TV Spot. The students were excited about the program and the questions they were exploring and we believe that many will bring their renewed curiosity with them when they return to school. We aim to continue our contact with students by two primary means: (1) organized events on campus arranged by each chapter (e.g., interesting science and engineering competitions, presentations, and poster sessions), and (2) a web forum through which students can communicate with each other, their mentors, and other staff members, allowing the students to ask questions whenever they need advice or help in academics and otherwise.

We look forward to expanding InnoWorks to the national and international level in the coming years. For 2006, we are developing two new chapters at the University of Pennsylvania and Georgetown University. We have also received interest from Saudi Arabia, India, Bulgaria, the Philippines, France, England, and the Bahamas. As the program expands, the organizational model will probably need to be two-tiered, where a national office provides support and outreach, while the university-based (local) chapters consist of undergraduate volunteers interfacing directly with the students, schools, and communities. We have already produced high-quality published materials describing the program structure, division of labor, educational research, pedagogical methods, activities, and missions. Future plans include: (1) development of “ready-to-go” kits for the activities and missions, (2) improved training materials (e.g., video demonstrations), (3) creation of new curricula (e.g., “Explorations” theme currently under development), (4) integrating InnoWorks into service-learning, K-12 education, and/or community outreach offices in universities, and (5) establishment of service-learning courses for mentor training and perhaps teaching credit for mentors.

The responsibilities of the national office will include: (1) responding to queries for new chapters by sending guidelines and evaluating proposals, (2) disseminating program and training materials such as books, equipment, and training videos, (3) developing and conducting the annual National Mentor and Staff Training Summit, including a significant online component for efficiency, (4) compiling a national newsletter to keep all chapters in communication, (5) making site visits, (6) overseeing development and compilation of new curricula that will be performed at both the local and national level, (7) developing and evaluating the program, and (8) obtaining funding to support local chapters.

Local chapters will be responsible for: (1) communicating with the national staff on needs and progress, (2) writing proposals and raising necessary funding at the local level, (3) recruiting and organizing the staff and mentors to run their program, (4) obtaining and transporting students to and from the program, (5) working with local schools, (6) arranging for the necessary facilities and equipment that cannot be provided by the InnoWorks organization, and (7) developing portions of new curricula that will be synthesized at the national level.

InnoWorks represents a new paradigm in grade-school science-education and outreach. A key innovation of the program is the use of undergraduate student volunteers as mentors, lessening the gap in both lifestyle and age between mentors and students and promoting a collaborative working environment. A second key idea is the explicit incorporation of the best theories in the educational research literature to guide the overall structure and purpose of the learning environment. These two elements, combined with the strength of the program materials and the dedication of the staff, give credence to the idea that the InnoWorks model may be able to inject enthusiasm into learning and complement science and engineering education throughout the country. The United States is not producing enough scientists and engineers, and many of those who are not in scientific disciplines are disinterested, distrusting, or downright hostile to science and the scientific method. A number of studies suggest that a key turning point for interest in science occurs in elementary school, and that impressions and biases formed this early in life can often carry over through the rest of grade school, college, and beyond.1,2,3 The InnoWorks program, though currently modest in scope, can help to increase scientific interest among our grade-school kids and ultimately build a broader base of support among the general public for scientific research and thinking.


1. Jimerson, S., B. Egeland, and A. Teo, A longitudinal study of achievement trajectories: factors associated with change. Journal of Educational Psychology, 1999. 91(1): p. 116-126.
2. Simmons, R.G., A. Black, and Y. Zhou, African-American versus White children and the transition into junior high school. American Journal of Education, 1991. 99(4): p. 481-520.
3. Neathery, M.F., Elementary and secondary students' perceptions toward science: correlations with gender, ethnicity, ability, grade, and science achievement. Electronic Journal of Science Education, 1997. 2(1): 11 p.