Price E-News - Special Edition: COVID-19 Response May 2020

We are excited to announce a new collaboration between the Price College of Business and the OU Center for Intelligence and National Security, as we present the first Zoom-based session in a new OU Global Risks & Threats Series, designed to find global solutions to the most pressing issues related to the COVID-19 pandemic. Led by series founding director Adriana Sanford, our first session, The Pandemic Threat: Risks and Impacts of COVID-19, will be held online from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Central time Saturday, June 6, and features numerous presenters from across the globe. We hope you will consider joining us for this important new series.

Early on, teams across multiple University divisions began working together on solutions for the pandemic crisis, utilizing research, products and facilities across the spectrum for problem-solving. By mid-April, the COVID-19 Essential Equipment Task Force, a team of more than 40 individuals across OU’s three campuses, had begun to develop, prototype, validate and offer recommended essential equipment designs for respirators, isolation boxes, face shields and head straps, with additional products currently in development. A full list of products and 3D printing templates is available on their new website. Major components in this collective team include the Tom Love Innovation Hub and its staff, facilities and materials. As of May 5, the University has donated more than 300 face shields and 11 isolation boxes, manufactured at the I-Hub, to the OU Medical Center.

Associate Professor of Marketing Qiong Wang’s organization Share & Grow has teamed up with the Oklahoma Chinese Community group to donate money, cleaning supplies and PPE to hospitals in the metro area, as well as EMSA, police stations, fire departments and nursing homes.

Share & Grow, which she co-founded in May 2018, helps share resources to help future generations learn life skills and build a healthier community together. Many who didn’t have anything to donate started sewing cloth masks. In just a few weeks, the two organizations collected and donated nearly $40,000, more than 20,000 N95 personal protection masks, nearly 24,000 surgical masks, 500 cloth masks and thousands of items of cleaning supplies, such as wipes and gloves.

On May 8, graduating seniors and graduate students participated in the University’s first-ever virtual commencement and convocation ceremonies. Although in-person services are tentatively scheduled for Aug. 8-9, we are so proud of the class of 2020 for making the best of the situation and joining us online for the celebrations. Some students even participated in a fun cap decorating contest, which you can see here. (There’s even a Price College-themed one near the end of the video.)

Laku Chidambaram, Associate Dean for Academic Programs and Engagement and W.P. Wood Professor of Management Information Systems, immediately began volunteering to help in a truly unique manner, by offering to apply quantitative methods to solving business problems pro bono to anyone currently enrolled in or graduated from the Price College of Business, via Google Meet. He also made donations to OU’s Food Pantry with every visit.

Full-time MBA students made the best of a difficult situation in mid-March by presenting their consulting projects to their clients online, including from inside a car and on a “tropical island,” all without missing a beat.

Price College Board of Advisors member and alum Kelley Grace (Bachelor of Accountancy, 2000), her busband Patrick (MBA, 2002) and their family supported a United Way of Norman fundraiser for a COVID-19 response and recovery fund that raised $3,600.

Tom Jones, Price College alum (BBA, Entrepreneurship and Venture Management, 2018) and founder of Tom Jones Designs, has established an online COVID-19 relief auction and raffle for his original works of art. All proceeds will be given as a charitable donation to a family in need, meal program or small struggling business of the winner’s choice. To date, more than $1,200 has been raised for charity, and the first raffle drawing will take place June 11, with additional raffles to be offered at later dates. Jones also is working with local small businesses to offer help with logo designs and auctionable artwork. Please visit his website to place a bid or purchase raffle tickets for his artwork.

Each spring, Assistant Professor Denise Parris’s New Venture Development III entrepreneurship class prepares final presentations for their products and services. Without a physical classroom, this year’s 15 student startup teams stepped up and filmed video presentations instead, which Denise compiled into a final virtual showcase, which you can view here. 

At the Ronnie K. Irani Center for the Creation of Economic Wealth, staff adapted to a new online format and conducted 45 virtual interviews to select next semester’s incoming I-CCEW cohort. They conducted end-of-semester final presentations remotely, attracting more than 300 viewers from across the globe to support and listen to the 13 student team presentations across all three OU campuses. They also reached out to I-CCEW alumni for help with Venture Strategy Sessions: one-hour counseling sessions for business owners and founders to talk through issues on their mind, especially related to the impact of the COVID-19 crisis. They conducted six focus groups with 30 local shoppers to develop COVID-19 re-opening insights for local businesses. The Mine, a social innovation program for young professionals, has gone fully remote, and consulting teams gave final presentations for their Oklahoma City and Tulsa locations. The OKCoders program has offered free coding meetups with instructors remotely during the quarantine, and plans continue to offer the boot camp instruction later this summer. The I-CCEW will be managing Tulsa Summer Academy on behalf of the George Kaiser Family Foundation for rising college juniors and seniors in Tulsa. If you are thinking about growth plans for your business, research or nonprofit, have an interest in social entrepreneurship support, want to learn full-stack coding skills, or are a Tulsa-based rising junior or senior with an interest in an innovation consulting internship, please contact I-CCEW Executive Director Jeff Moore via email at j-moore@ou.edu.

In response to the spring campus closure, the Tom Love Innovation Hub moved many of its programs online, including the bi-weekly Hack & Learn series, offered in Norman and Tulsa, which focuses on the different aspects of web programming, including HTML, CSS and JavaScript; Sooner Startup, which offers guidance in starting new businesses; and Virtual Coffee Sessions, where different individuals can get together and discuss strategies and creative problem solving in an era of COVID-19.