{"id":120414,"date":"2020-03-26T14:24:03","date_gmt":"2020-03-26T20:24:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/communique.uccs.edu\/?p=120414"},"modified":"2020-04-21T15:58:17","modified_gmt":"2020-04-21T21:58:17","slug":"the-sky-is-the-limit-eight-uccs-students-and-alumni-build-a-bright-future-for-colorado-springs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/communique.uccs.edu\/?p=120414","title":{"rendered":"\u201cThe sky is the limit\u201d: Eight UCCS students and alumni build a bright future for Colorado Springs"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/a>
Junior economics major Tyler Alcon works with his Quad Innovation Partnership project team at the Quad’s downtown headquarters. The organization teams up students from Colorado College, Pikes Peak Community College, UCCS and the U.S. Air Force Academy to serve as business consultants for Colorado Spring clients.<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

UCCS students and alumni working as innovation consultants\nfor Colorado Springs businesses are busy building a bright future for their\ncity \u2013 and themselves.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This spring, six current students and two recent graduates are participating in the Quad Innovation Partnership\u2019s semester-length program. Together with students from Colorado College, Pikes Peak Community College and the U.S. Air Force Academy, they\u2019re spending the semester designing solutions for Colorado Springs\u2019 challenges and pitching strategies to bring the city into the future. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

And though the teams are navigating the realities of virtual work like many professionals due to the spread of COVID-19, they aren’t stopping until the work is done.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Headshot<\/a>
Tyler Alcon, a junior economics major, is working on the Quad\u2019s smart city initiatives program.<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Among their tasks are turning Colorado Springs into a \u2018smart\u2019\ncity, engaging young people in planning for electric energy production,\ncreating affordable housing downtown and designing suicide prevention programs\nfor the city\u2019s schools.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tyler Alcon, a junior economics major, is working on the Quad\u2019s smart city initiatives program, where he is helping to create a framework for the city\u2019s growth. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Using Carnegie Mellon’s Metro21 Smart Cities Institute in Pittsburgh as a model, his six-person team is taking on the role of a consulting firm to dream up how the city of Colorado Springs could build a pipeline of business, higher education, start-up and municipal partners to make 11 recommended \u2018smart city\u2019 initiatives a reality. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cBeing a smart city is about creating long-term economic\ngrowth through smart technologies and sustainability,\u201d Alcon said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cFor example, there are a lot of tech companies moving to\nColorado Springs because we have a huge defense industry. So one of our smart\ncity initiatives is making Colorado Springs a hub for cybersecurity, and trying\nto attract new talent and new start-ups and tech companies. It\u2019s ultimately trying\nto make Colorado Springs a smart, sustainable, more attractive city for new\nbusinesses.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He continued, \u201cIn the next five years or so, Colorado Springs will have a tremendous amount of new, progressive technologies that you see in other cities. It\u2019s going to be a new, more progressive Colorado Springs. This city is growing at a tremendous rate, and it\u2019s very exciting to be a part of it.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Headshot<\/a>
Megan Wendling \u201919 graduated from UCCS with a degree in psychology and is now working on the Quad\u2019s suicide prevention project.<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Though the smart city initiatives project has recommended 11\nkey initiatives to the city of Colorado Springs, Alcon\u2019s team has narrowed\ntheir focus this semester to two: cybersecurity and defense. By the end of the\nsemester, they plan to present their market research to representatives and partners\nof the city, along with a list of recommended partners for the two initiatives\nand a plan for implementation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Quad projects don\u2019t just bring the fresh ideas and energy of\nstudents to city-wide challenges. They also help students and recent graduates jumpstart\ntheir professional growth.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Megan Wendling \u201919 graduated from UCCS with a degree in psychology and is now working on the Quad\u2019s suicide prevention project. Her team has partnered with Children\u2019s Hospital to research the most effective suicide prevention programs they could implement in Colorado Springs\u2019 schools.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe work I have been involved with at the Quad is some of\nthe most meaningful work I have ever done,\u201d Wendling said. \u201cAnd it fits in with\nmy career path, because I\u2019m specifically interested in making an impact in\nmental health at a community level. I believe we can stimulate real change when\na diverse group of people comes together for something they\u2019re equally\npassionate about, which is what the Quad is all about.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Headshot<\/a>
For Steven Brown, a junior economics major, the experience of working on a business consulting project translates directly to his professional development.<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

According to Steven Brown, a junior economics major, the\nexperience of working on a business consulting project translates directly to\nhis professional development.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThis is giving me work\nexperience in a creative, project-based setting that encourages critical\nthinking and allows me to apply some economic tools,\u201d he said. \u201cSpecifically,\nthrough my team\u2019s work to help build a mentorship program for female staff members\nat Colorado College, I\u2019ll analyze the data acquired through surveys and make meaningful\ncorrelations by running regression models. This is really beneficial as I build\nexperience for a career path in economics.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Between building their resumes\nand creating innovative solutions for their city, the Quad projects UCCS\nstudents are engaged in are good for both them and Colorado Springs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe have a voice in the direction our city is headed,\u201d Alcon said, \u201cand I\u2019m honored to be a part of it. We\u2019re establishing the future framework for this city. I feel like we\u2019re on a rocket ship here in Colorado Springs, and the sky is the limit.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/div>\n\n\n\n

Interested in being a part of a Quad team? Students and recent graduates can learn more and apply online<\/strong><\/a>.<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

UCCS students and alumni working as innovation consultants for Colorado Springs businesses are busy building a bright future for their city \u2013 and themselves. (More)<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":27,"featured_media":120577,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[1,46],"tags":[53,86,148,130,332],"class_list":["post-120414","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-all","category-business","tag-academic-affairs","tag-college-of-letters-arts-and-sciences","tag-department-of-economics","tag-department-of-psychology","tag-more-news"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/communique.uccs.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/03\/Quad-Innovation-Partnership-Colorado-Springs-Colorado-College-Students-at-Work-Session-Wild-Prairie-Photography-16-2020.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1mBpJ-vka","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/communique.uccs.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/120414","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/communique.uccs.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/communique.uccs.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/communique.uccs.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/27"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/communique.uccs.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=120414"}],"version-history":[{"count":20,"href":"https:\/\/communique.uccs.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/120414\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":121936,"href":"https:\/\/communique.uccs.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/120414\/revisions\/121936"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/communique.uccs.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/120577"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/communique.uccs.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=120414"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/communique.uccs.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=120414"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/communique.uccs.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=120414"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}