By Mark Brinkerhoff
The e-business students of today will be the new economy leaders of tomorrow, said Owen Cherrington, director of the Kevin and Debra Rollins Center for e-Business @ BYU.
Cherrington said the small but growing number of students in this program work on individual projects to develop e-business on the BYU campus.
Students will present an overview of their projects at an e-business day, to be held on Friday, Nov. 10, from 9:45 a.m. to 3 p.m. in the N. Eldon Tanner Building. This event will include a ribbon-cutting ceremony, e-business panel discussions and a student-entrepreneurs workshop.
Cherrington said the e-business day will also highlight the “three primary thrusts” of BYU’s e-business program: industry research, student and faculty training and web development.
“The experience we get of interacting with industry professionals is unique,” said Steven Tedjamulia, head of the 30-student research team.
He said members of his team do research to improve operations at companies like Novell, Sun Microsystems, Novartis Pharmeceuticals and I-Omega.
In return, these sponsor companies make products and services available to e-business students, Tedjamulia said.
He said this arrangement enables students to gain practical experience in the new economy through wireless banking, e-sales and clinical trials on the World Wide Web.
“The magnitude of this research is just starting,” Tedjamulia said. “We’re all pioneers.”
If research is the most significant product of the e-business program, its Web site is perhaps the most important means of distribution.
“It’s the face of e-business,” said Milen Marinov, head of the 12-student web development team. “Our Web site gives industry an idea of how we’re improving in e-business.”
He said the primary service of the Web site is to inform people of research on new technology and give tips to e-business entrepreneurs.
Marinov said the web development team is also creating a virtual library where e-business students can go to find out what their professors are working on.
He said the Web site has drawn outside attention to the e-business program as a whole.
It was key in getting BYU invited to an IBM e-business conference three weeks ago, Marinov said.
Events like the IBM conference and the upcoming e-business day will ultimately help create partnerships for the program, said Alex Ma, head of the seven-student innovation team.
“We hope to show BYU and the world how much our students can offer to the e-business community,” Ma said.
