'Social entrepreneurs' give prize to community agency
WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. — Two Purdue University students whose high-tech language-teaching product has earned honors and dollars in entrepreneurial competitions are giving part of their prize money to a Lafayette adult-education center.
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Elliott and Czeskis are presenting LARA with the gift and a certificate of appreciation at 10 a.m. Thursday (April 20) at the Burton D. Morgan Center for Entrepreneurship. The event is open to the public.
"In working with LARA to develop Merlin's Magic Castle, we came to believe in the organization's mission, and we wanted to give something back," Elliott said.
Czeskis agreed. "LARA helps adults fill in their education gaps with high school math, social studies and English so they can get their GEDs and become more employable. LARA also teaches English as a second language, from beginning to advanced levels."
LARA director JoAnn Vorst said the students' gift will make a difference.
"Purdue reaches out and builds partnerships in the community," Vorst said. "Both the Merlin project and the students' gift will have an impact that touches the hearts and minds of LARA adult learners and their children."
Czeskis, a computer science and math major, was part of the team from the university's Engineering Projects in Community Service (EPICS) that built the Merlin's Magic Castle prototype in fall 2004. The team and the prototype won EPICS first Idea-to-Product Competition in spring 2005 and its $15,000 prize before entering the Burton Morgan Entrepreneurial Competition in February.
Elliott, a genetic biology major with entrepreneurial aspirations, brought business and marketing experience to the Merlin's Magic Castle team after the Idea-to-Product Competition when she and Czeskis met in a class in spring 2005.
"Alexei is the Merlin's Magic Castle driving force, but we think of ourselves as having complementary skills," Elliott said. "What we have now is a software product that is owned by the Purdue Research Foundation."
Elliott and Czeskis don't plan on starting a business based on their software.
"What we have is a product and not a company," Elliott said. "The barrier to our taking Merlin's Magic Castle to market is the huge expense of manufacturing, so our solution is to get a company to buy the license."
Czeskis said a new team of EPICS students is adding capabilities to the software.
"We absolutely believe in the commercial viability of the concept," Czeskis said. "We've also come to understand that a big part of doing good is economic viability. You're not going to save a forest by just yelling about it. You have to make the economic case."
Elliott graduated in December and is working as a full-time intern in the Office of Technology Commercialization at the Purdue Research Park. She has applied to top law schools and plans a career in biomedical entrepreneurship. She's still interested in projects like Merlin's Magic Castle that she describes as "social entrepreneurship."
Czeskis is a junior who plans on teaching computer science at the college level. He's done an internship at Stanford University's Southern California Earthquake Center and will do pharmaceutical research for Eli Lilly and Co. this summer.
"One of the areas I'd like to pursue as a college professor is integrating computer science into multiple disciplines the way we have done in English as a second language with Merlin's Magic Castle at LARA," he said.
In the meantime, children ages 5-11 in the LARA child-care center use Merlin's Magic Castle every day to learn English language skills. The software uses a radio-frequency identification (RFID) tag that is embedded in an object, for example, a toy firetruck. When a child holds the object, Merlin's computer screen displays "fire*ruck" and asks the child to supply the missing letter. Or Merlin could direct the child to gather all the four-legged toy animals in the center.
"We hear the children love it, but they want more games," Czeskis said. "The current EPICS team is working on that."
Nancy Clement, EPICS Entrepreneurship Initiative coordinator, said, "We are so proud of Alexei and Amicia, they represent what EPICS and the EPICS Entrepreneurship Initiative are all about. They are very special individuals."
The EPICS Entrepreneurship Initiative is housed at the Burton D. Morgan Center for Entrepreneurship at Discovery Park, the university's hub for interdisciplinary research and enterprise.
EPICS harnesses the talents of students from engineering and other disciplines to solve real-world problems, resulting in both community benefits and educational opportunities. Since its founding at Purdue in 1995, EPICS has become a growing national movement. Fourteen other universities have created chapters based on the Purdue model.
Writer: Mike Lillich, (765) 494-2077, mlillich@purdue.edu
Sources: Amicia Elliott (765) 494-2611, adelliott@prf.org
Alexei Czeskis, aczeskis@purdue.edu
JoAnn Vorst, (765) 476-2920, Jvorst@lara.lafayette.in.us
Dee Dee Long, LARA business manager, (765) 476-2920, ext. 201, Dlong@lara.lafayette.in.us
Nancy Clement, (765) 494-9884, nic@purdue.edu
Purdue News Service: (765) 494-2096; purduenews@purdue.edu
Note to Journalists: Broadcast-quality video b-roll is available by contacting Mike Lillich, Purdue News Service, at (765) 494-2077, mlillich@purdue.edu
PHOTO CAPTION:
Children at the Lafayette Adult Resource Academy, from left, Melissa Gonzalez, Lydia Adams and Mireya Mendoza work with Amicia Elliott and Alexei Czeskis to use learning software called Merlin's Magic Castle. Elliott and Czeskis, as members of the Purdue Engineering Products in Community Service team, developed the software and a prize-winning business plan for commercializing it. On April 20, Elliott and Czeskis will present LARA with a $1,000 contribution from their business plan competition winnings. (Purdue News Service photo/David Umberger)
A publication-quality photo is available at http://news.uns.purdue.edu/images/+2006/LARA-RFIDsoftware.jpg
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