Sarah Zehr, Assistant Dean and Director of Career Services for the College of Engineering, has just launched an online resource for volunteering in the Champaign-Urbana area. Her website, www.cuvolunteer.org, directly matches nonprofit organizations that need help with people in the community who want to volunteer. The revamped site, which was previously set up as a resource primarily for UIllinois students, is now community wide so as to provide more volunteers for the nonprofits in need. Check out the article in the News-Gazette for more details, and Zehr’s website to register!

ECE Graduate Student Kat Kim has just received the prestigious National Science Foundation (NSF) Graduate Research Fellowship (GRF) for her work in improving solar panels and integrating them into power grids. The GRF awards the recipient with 3 years of financial support for research, and iFoundry is delighted to see Kat receive this award. For more information on Kat’s award, check out ECE’s article about her, published on July 21, 2011.

iFoundry co-director, David E. Goldberg, has started a consulting and coaching firm, ThreeJoy Associates, Inc, to carry learning from iFoundry around the world.  Goldberg retired from full-time teaching and research at the University on 31 December last year.  He currently is in Singapore working with the National University of Singapore’s Design-Centric Curriculum, and he’ll return to Illinois to work with iFoundry faculty, staff and students at the beginning of the school year and at various times throughout the year.  An inaugural post on the ThreeJoy site is available here.  Those who wish to meet with Dr. Goldberg during his return to campus should contact the iFoundry office or him directly.

Engineer of the Future in Portugese is Engenheiro do Futuro, and on 25-26 August 2011 (Thursday-Friday) an event will be held at Escola de Engenharia UFMG in Belo Horizonte, Brazil to consider the engineer of the future in the Brazilian context (program here).  Rick Miller, President of Olin College, and Dave Goldberg, Co-Founder and Co-Director of the Illinois Foundry for Innovation in Engineering Education (iFoundry) will keynote the event.  This is the fifth Engineer of the Future event, three in the US (two at UIUC & one at Olin), one in Spain, and now one in Brazil.

Cory Levy, UIUC student and friend of iFoundry, has received $1 million for his latest startup, a mobile app called One.  One notifies you when you are in close proximity to someone with shared interests. The goal is to help people make missed connections; to initiate conversations that might not otherwise take place.

One debuts this fall at UC Berkeley, with plans to later launch the app at the University of Illinois and the University of Texas. Cory has received some great press from VentureBeat and TechCrunch about the debut of One.

Cory Levy’s connection to iFoundry began as a high school student in 2009 when he came and spoke to iFoundry first year students. He was already an entrepreneur with several startups under his belt and inspired the students to take risks, appreciate openness to others, and to “unleash” their entrepreneurial energies. Cory also spent his freshman year at the University of Illinois as a computer science student.

Cory, 19, currently lives in San Francisco. He is also the creator of the NextGen Conferences held annually at Stanford University.

Learn more about Cory Levy.

We are pleased to announce Cory Levy’s upcoming visit to the UIUC campus September 5 – 9, 2011. Details about events you can attend during this special visit will be posted in the next few weeks!

iFoundry and iefx are presenting a series of workshops to help first-year engineering students explore communities and aspirations. Each workshop is focused on a general topic of common interest to many first-year engineers.

The first workshop is Tuesday, August 30 from 6:00-7:30pm in 1320 Digital Computer Lab.  Come join us and hear friends of iFoundry and iefx speak, galvanize, and invite you to come together and begin building your aspirations to innovate, create, and develop your entrepreneurial skills! This Entrepreneurship and Innovation workshop is specifically focused on students interested in technology entrepreneurship in new enterprises, new product innovation, and/or startups.

Presenters include: Ray Price, iFoundry Co-Director, Karen Hyman, iFoundry Associate Director, Jon Naber, founder and president of Illini Prosthetics Technologies and featured speaker at Launch, Ken Taylor, teacher of Foundations of Business and Entrepreneurship, Josh Holat, student startup entrepreneur, and Patrick Duffy, iefx ELA.

Batman Design Jam (sponsored by Mozilla Labs & iFoundry)

THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 1 @ 7 – 9 PM | 2405 SIEBEL CENTER | CONTACT: ANDREW LAMBERT | RSVP VIA FACEBOOK EVENT

Gotham City is under siege by crime. Working with your other student consultants, Batman needs you to rapidly redesign his utility belt to address problems presented by different villains! Come learn and apply user-centered design methods like storyboarding and personas to help Batman. These techniques can be used to design real and useful systems.

You don’t need any design experience to participate. We’ll teach ya.

We are pleased to announce that Cory Levy, friend of iFoundry, will be coming to the University of Illinois next week! Cory is an inspiring student and this will be a very popular event. Space is limited. Anyone interested in entrepreneurship, innovation, creativity and networking will especially interested in attending.

He will be speaking on Wednesday, September 7 from 3:00 – 5:00pm at NCSA 1122. This will be a great opportunity to hear from Cory Levy , the Co-Founder and COO of One. One is a mobile application that allows you to personalize your world wherever you are.  One raised over $1 Million in seed funding from top tier venture capitalists, making Cory one of the youngest people ever to raise venture capital.  Prior to One, Cory interned at: TechStars, Union Square Ventures, and the Founders Fund. Cory studied at the University of Illinois for one year and is now on “leave” to focus his time on One.

Also, you are invited to join us for a Pizza Session afterwards at 5:00pm in the NCSA Lobby. This will be a great chance to visit with Cory one-on-one.