The Elon MBA grad spoke on his experience working at the intersection of business and technology as part of the event sponsored by the University Innovation Fellows.
On Thursday, May 9, the University Innovation Fellows (UIF) held their first annual Business & STEM speaker series event.
The discussion took place as a result of the hard work from the most recent cohort of University Innovation Fellows. After gathering research from their peers, Sydney Thornton ’20 and Gillian Hook ’21 identified a need to bridge business and STEM students on-campus. Gillian said the speaker series will serve the purpose of creating discussion that will “break down the barriers that silo business and STEM students off from one another.”
Haley Brengartner ’20 moderated the discussion with Moe Asad G’18 speaking about his work operating at the crossroads of business and technology. Asad works as a sales process & solution manager at Volvo Trucks & Mack Trucks. In this role, he develops process and IT roadmaps in the sales-to-order portfolio. Asad highlighted how he serves as a liaison between business and IT departments within the company in order to ensure that project teams are communicating effectively.
Asad emphasized that disconnects between business and STEM exist in the real world and that students who build cross-functional skillsets across disciplines will be valued employees at their future companies. When asked what skill he thought college students should focus on developing, Asad answered problem-solving. By continuing to “ask why” and “seek purpose,” Asad believes that students can ensure that they are actively defining the problem in order to seek the right solution.
The event was well-attended by students from both the Love School of Business and Elon College, the College for Arts and Sciences. There were also s’mores provided at the event by student-run venture S’mokin’ S’mores.
The University Innovation Fellows is a student organization with cohorts on 258 college campuses around the world. UIF empowers students to become change agents in higher education. Prospective fellows apply to an online design thinking training program run out of Stanford University’s Hasso Plattner Institute of Design (d.school). Upon completing training, fellows identify a challenge within higher education on their campus and utilize their newly gained skillsets to overcome this challenge.
Elon's University Innovation Fellows program is run out of the Doherty Center for Creativity, Innovation, and Entrepreneurship and is advised by the Doherty Center’s Executive Director Alyssa Martina.