INNOWORKS OPERATING PRINCIPLES

Chapters

InnoWorks chapters should build strong relationships with their host institutions, communities, and sponsors through constructive partnerships and outreach.

  • Volunteerism
    • Chapter members are volunteers and will not be financially compensated
  • Student Entrepreneurship
    • Chapters must be led wholly by students.
    • Members of InnoWorks chapters who are significantly involved with program development or interact with students during official InnoWorks programs must be enrolled as students in good standing at a college or university.
    • Good standing status is based on the rules and regulations defined by the institution where the volunteer is a student.
    • The college or university at which members are enrolled does not need to be the host institution of a particular chapter.
  • University Relationships
    • Chapters should obtain official club status at their host institution.
    • Chapters should develop good working relationships with the host institution’s administration and faculty.
    • Chapters should have at least one non-student advisor, e.g., faculty advisor.
  • Local Leaders
    • It is important to develop good working relationships with local educational, community, and business leaders such as public schools administrators and teachers.
    • Student Recruitment
    • InnoWorks makes an effort to recruit students from underserved backgrounds and underrepresented groups in STEM such as female students.
    • InnoWorks must recruit its students through local schools and community centers, which will help identify and nominate students who may benefit most from but have little opportunity to participate in programs like InnoWorks.
    • Chapters should provide clear quotas to each school or community center they partner with commensurate with available resources.
    • In the event of too many interested students for a given program, selection should be based on students’ desire to attend InnoWorks and the impact they think the program will have on their lives.
  • Sponsors and Funding
    • Chapters shall work with UIA and potential sponsors to obtain funding to ensure that every deserving InnoWorker can attend InnoWorks without consideration of economic constraints.
  • Program Development
    • InnoWorks curricula are to be developed collaboratively by constituent chapters in efforts coordinated by UIA.
    • Chapters must conduct high quality programs in accordance with guidelines provided by UIA.
  • Chapter Continuity
    • It is the responsibility of the current InnoWorks chapter leadership to successfully plan, train, and transfer knowledge and responsibility to their successors.
    • Chapters should provide mechanisms for InnoWorkers, mentors, and staff to stay connected with opportunities to help and support each other.
    • Chapters should actively recruit former InnoWorkers to become junior mentors in high school, and chapter leaders, full mentors, and staff in college.

Staff and Mentors

  • Members of InnoWorks must always conduct themselves in a manner that reflects upon themselves and the organization favorably.
  • Members of InnoWorks must strive to serve as good role models for InnoWorkers and other young people through their honesty, integrity, leadership, altruism, and hard work.

InnoWorks Programs

  • Curricula
    InnoWorks curricula should have the following characteristics:
    • Interdisciplinary and thematic, i.e., structured as themes such as “Vision” instead of specific disciplines such as “Mechanical Engineering” or “Biology,” which enables students to better understand connections among different scientific fields and how they relate to their own lives,
    • Modular and scalable, with activities and missions designed for a series of interconnected themes exhibiting some flexibility in allowing programs to rearrange and select subsets without hampering curricular cohesion,
    • Portable, such that they can be easily transferred and implemented at a wide range of universities and colleges around the world, and resourceful, emphasizing scientific principles, creative problem-solving, and teamwork over expensive equipment and unnecessary complexity.
    • Developed in accordance with the latest pedagogical techniques created by UIA based on cutting-edge neuroscience and educational research.
  • Programs
    • InnoWorks programs must follow a curriculum that has prior approval from UIA.
    • InnoWorkers should be divided into teams of three to four students led by a college student mentor, i.e., a program with 64 students will have 16 teams and a minimum of 16 mentors.
    • InnoWorks strives to always evolve and improve to bring the best programs possible to InnoWorkers.
    • Towards this end, InnoWorks chapters and UIA are expected to collaboratively develop methods of assessing program success.
    • An analysis of success in achieving program goals must be conducted at least annually.

 

InnoWorks is a Winner of the 2007 BRICK Awards