{"492251":{"#nid":"492251","#data":{"type":"news","title":"Student Spotlight: Misha Desai: Team Entrepreneur","body":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EMisha Desai (BSIE 2016) has explored the team aspect of entrepreneurship from the perspective of several different projects, including the Grand Challenges Living Learning Community (GC) and the Vertically Integrated Projects (VIP) program.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EShe came to Georgia Tech knowing that she wanted to be an engineer, having been on a FIRST Robotics team in high school. After looking into the Stewart School of Industrial \u0026amp; Systems Engineering (ISyE) and the curriculum it offered, she found that it provided the mix of business and engineering that interested her -- \u0022even going beyond,\u0022 she says, her expectations of what she would learn at ISyE.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EShe was able to put her IE skills into play as part of the GC, which promotes student-driven cross-disciplinary teams that investigate societally relevant technological and sociological problems. Together, students in teams attempt to solve the world\u0027s most \u0022wicked challenges,\u0022 as Desai puts it.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EDesai\u0027s particular team developed HIVE (Health Integration Via Education), a program targeted toward fourth graders in Chattahoochee Elementary School in Duluth, Ga. \u201cWe looked at how technology and interactive lesson plans impacted how students responded and retained health information.\u201d The students wore a clip-on pedometer that plugged into a computer and connected to a website called Zamzee. The students were awarded points for the steps they took.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cWe linked that back to a curriculum, so we would go in every week and teach the students about health,\u201d explains Desai. \u201cWhat we saw was that the kids were really receptive to the program we were creating, so the fact that they could wear these pedometers and take them home \u2013 we saw their fitness levels exceed our control group\u2019s by almost 60 percent. So it was a huge difference.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EAs the program developed, Desai and her team discovered the possibility of turning the project into an entrepreneurial venture by creating their own startup company. She says, \u0022We began connecting with the start-up community in Atlanta and resources around campus to understand what building our own company would require and to also build our own wearable prototypes.\u0022\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EDesai\u2019s specific role in the potential business was team CEO. As an IE, \u201cwe\u2019re really good at strategy, critical thinking, and problem solving.\u201d She was responsible for making sure each team in the business was on task and meeting the project deliverables.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EUltimately, due to technical challenges \u2013 as well as the fact that not everyone on the team was willing to drop out of school and work on the startup full-time \u2013 the GC team decided to put the project on hold. \u201cWe were really close,\u201d Desai adds. \u201cWe were about to launch the business \u2013 we were looking through the paperwork and everything. [But] having the dedication to doing one thing is an important part of the process.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EIn addition to the GC, Desai also participated in the VIP program, which offers credit to students for participating on research teams consisting of undergrads, graduate students, and professors. \u201cMany of the teams also focus on building projects from an entrepreneurial perspective,\u201d she says.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EFor three semesters, she was part of the patient similarity team. As Desai explains it, \u201cThis project focused on clustering patients into meaningful groups to provide targeted provider care and better use of hospital resources. As part of the program, we not only built our minimum viable product but also worked with external groups to gain feedback, write business cases, and present to industry experts on our project. Our faculty lead really pushed us to look at our projects from a business perspective and taught us the keys to really making the right pitch.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EAs part of a VIP team, Desai was once again using her IE-driven business and engineering skills. When asked how her IE skills complement her entrepreneurial work, Desai reflects for a moment and then says, \u201cOur curriculum encompasses a lot of different skills: business, engineering, and computer science. Thus, as an IE, I find myself at the intersection of all these groups, and it\u2019s a really interesting spot to be in. We\u2019re really the jack-of-all-trades. We have the breadth to manage teams effectively and understand processes from a holistic perspective. However, we also have the skills to dive further in and concentrate in a particular area to enable us to step into entirely different roles.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EAs for her future work, Desai feels prepared with her IE skills \u201cto look at problems and understand them analytically and from a holistic perspective. I would love to pursue entrepreneurial work after I graduate and to be a part of something that disturbs traditional ways of how things operate. I find innovation and challenges and possibilities of entrepreneurship to be really exciting. I am also really interested in analytics and how we can use data to drive new insights about people, businesses, and how processes work.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EShe\u0027s going to use those analytical IE skills as an operations leadership intern for Amazon this coming summer: \u201cI think this will be a really cool opportunity to see such a large supply chain network that\u2019s really been innovating processes and disturbing traditional supply chains. I\u2019ll basically act as manager of the operations facility \u2013 which is where Amazon gets your order, puts it in a box and ships it to the customer \u2013 a warehouse, essentially \u2013 and shadow the actual operations leader. So I\u2019ll be managing a team of 100 associates on the floor the entire time.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cThis will be focused more on the supply chain on the operations side of things, so I\u2019ll manage the supply chain at this warehouse and make sure everything is flowing through it, monitoring and reducing bottlenecks. It\u2019s a collaboration of the supply chain classes I\u2019ve taken at Tech and then a lot of the optimization tools that come into play when I start looking at how I\u2019ll change my facility or how another change might affect the system. The idea of doing two-day delivery, same-day delivery, delivering your groceries \u2013 those are all really cool things. It\u2019s not how people imagined traditional supply chains, and the fact that Amazon can do it and do it so effectively \u2013 there\u2019s a lot of opportunity to learn from that.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EWhile not sure what she\u0027ll be doing after graduation \u2013 perhaps eventually going on to get her master\u0027s degree in statistics or analytics \u2013 Desai did say that she is \u201clooking for an environment where I can continue learning, innovating, and working with really talented people. And when you\u2019re in an atmosphere where you\u2019re \u2018disturbing\u2019 or causing some type of change, it\u2019s cool in that you don\u2019t know what to expect; you can only anticipate and think of every possible thing that could go wrong. So there\u2019s a lot to think about, but it\u2019s never been done before, so you\u2019re on your own. You get to decide what you want to do, which is a cool place to be in.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E","summary":null,"format":"limited_html"}],"field_subtitle":"","field_summary":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EISyE student Misha Desai has gained entrepreneurial experience by participating in several of Georgia Tech\u0027s on-campus opportunties, including Grand Challenges and the VIP program.\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"field_summary_sentence":[{"value":"ISyE student Misha Desai has gained entrepreneurial experience by participating in several of Georgia Tech\u0027s on-campus opportunties, including Grand Challenges and the VIP program."}],"uid":"28766","created_gmt":"2016-01-28 12:30:34","changed_gmt":"2016-10-08 03:20:31","author":"Shelley Wunder-Smith","boilerplate_text":"","field_publication":"","field_article_url":"","dateline":{"date":"2016-01-28T00:00:00-05:00","iso_date":"2016-01-28T00:00:00-05:00","tz":"America\/New_York"},"extras":[],"hg_media":{"492231":{"id":"492231","type":"image","title":"ISyE Student Misha Desai","body":null,"created":"1454083200","gmt_created":"2016-01-29 16:00:00","changed":"1475895248","gmt_changed":"2016-10-08 02:54:08","alt":"ISyE Student Misha Desai","file":{"fid":"204480","name":"misah-desai.jpg","image_path":"\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/misah-desai_0.jpg","image_full_path":"http:\/\/tlwarc.hg.gatech.edu\/\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/misah-desai_0.jpg","mime":"image\/jpeg","size":18661,"path_740":"http:\/\/tlwarc.hg.gatech.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/740xx_scale\/public\/images\/misah-desai_0.jpg?itok=eJfcCax2"}},"492241":{"id":"492241","type":"image","title":"ISyE Student Misha Desai with Her VIP Project Team","body":null,"created":"1454083200","gmt_created":"2016-01-29 16:00:00","changed":"1475895248","gmt_changed":"2016-10-08 02:54:08","alt":"ISyE Student Misha Desai with Her VIP Project Team","file":{"fid":"204481","name":"vipphoto.jpg","image_path":"\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/vipphoto_0.jpg","image_full_path":"http:\/\/tlwarc.hg.gatech.edu\/\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/vipphoto_0.jpg","mime":"image\/jpeg","size":88187,"path_740":"http:\/\/tlwarc.hg.gatech.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/740xx_scale\/public\/images\/vipphoto_0.jpg?itok=UaZ0ouLw"}}},"media_ids":["492231","492241"],"groups":[{"id":"1242","name":"School of Industrial and Systems Engineering (ISYE)"}],"categories":[{"id":"8862","name":"Student Research"},{"id":"145","name":"Engineering"}],"keywords":[{"id":"27471","name":"grand challenges"},{"id":"426","name":"isye"},{"id":"169857","name":"MIsha Desai"},{"id":"169858","name":"VIP program"}],"core_research_areas":[{"id":"39501","name":"People and Technology"}],"news_room_topics":[],"event_categories":[],"invited_audience":[],"affiliations":[],"classification":[],"areas_of_expertise":[],"news_and_recent_appearances":[],"phone":[],"contact":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003E\u003Ca href=\u0022mailto:shelley.wunder-smith@isye.gatech.edu\u0022\u003EShelley Wunder-Smith\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EWriter\/Editor\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EStewart School of Industrial \u0026amp; Systems Engineering\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E404.385.4745\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"email":["shelley.wunder-smith@isye.gatech.edu"],"slides":[],"orientation":[],"userdata":""}}}