Enrichment Programs
NEWPATH
Objectives
NEWPATH is an NSF-supported program that has been set up at Ohio State with the mission to educate, train and nurture highly motivated students to become IT entrepreneurs of the information age. The most ambitious students are expected, by the time of graduation, to be running their own IT startups and be ready to become the next generation of business and technology leaders of the IT world.
Intended Outcomes
- To provide a thorough education in computing fundamentals as well as in the most promising ideas and technologies that are likely to form the core of small and large IT businesses of the future;
- To help students in the program develop, via the Entrepreneurship Minor program, a thorough understanding of essential issues and ideas related to creating, launching and running successful IT ventures;
- To help students develop and hone their entrepreneurship skills by providing suitable internship opportunities in IT startups and other suitable IT companies in the Central Ohio area;
- To help students further develop their understanding of key principles of IT-entrepreneurship by providing a forum, in the form of a weekly seminar, where they can learn from each others' experiences and ideas and by interacting with local IT entrepreneurs;
- To provide students a realistic experience in planning, acquiring funding, and setting up and running an IT venture in a year-long e-practicum during the final year of the program; and
- To evaluate each aspect of the NEWPATH program to assess the efficacy of the various components and use the results of the assessments to continuously improve the program.