TULSA, Okla. — On Tuesday, students in a hands-on innovation class at the University of Tulsa presented their capstone projects at GitWit downtown.
"So, what we're trying to do is create opportunities for students," Nathan Wooland, TU professor, said. "And so while we have academic offerings, and we've been providing classes, I think part of it is trying to expand some of our co-curricular and curricular offerings to be able to provide students some experiential classes like this, but as well as some out of the classroom experiences like competitions, or actually integration into the business community."
Zero to One: How to Innovate and Change Your World is a 14-week-long class with students from all degrees and year levels.
"This class is, to some extent, to help students that are entrepreneurial in nature to thank about those entrepreneurial opportunities, but to also help train corporate leaders," Woolard said.
They all learn to come up with solutions to problems we all have every day.
This capstone project, however, is about attracting and keeping young professionals in the Tulsa area.
"It's so cool," Amanda Turk, head of learning at GitWit, said."I mean one of the reasons that I love teaching is it's just really exciting to see your students grow over the course of the semester."
Turk is a driving force behind this class.
The students pitched their projects to a panel of Tulsa professionals.
"They learn tools, they learn strategies that are used in industry, and they do all of this through hands on projects rather than with textbooks," Turk said.
Dayne O'Daniel is a student in the class.
"It's one of the coolest classes I've probably ever taken because it's a hands-on experience," O'Daniel said.
He started a non-profit but soon realized he needed more education to run it to the best of his ability.
It is the reason he thinks this topic, in particular, is so vital for our area.
"I think if we can get education shifted around in the state of Oklahoma, I don't think we'd have problems attracting anybody to come to this state," O'Daniel said.
O'Daniel started Aerospace Pirates Club, a non-profit, to help get students into the industry, hoping to use the knowledge from the class to do just that and keep them in our state.
To learn more about GitWit, visit its website here: https://www.gitwit.com/
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