As the playwright George Bernard Shaw wrote: “Imagination is the beginning of creation.” And in a world hungry for innovation, sometimes imagination can use a little boost.
That’s why the Avery Dennison Foundation has been encouraging innovative thinking for college students studying technology and engineering in China and India since 2008 through its Spirit of Invention (InvEnt) Scholarships. By providing tuition assistance, an invention competition and professional development opportunities, the program seeks to “inspire the spirit of innovation” in tomorrow’s engineers and tech workers.
Second- and third-year students in specific STEM disciplines at various or multiple universities in India and China can apply for InvEnt Scholarships. As part of their application, students submit ideas for an invention they’ll design during their scholarship year. Scholarships are awarded to students who demonstrate outstanding innovative spirit and excellent practical competence.
Avinash Rao was one of 10 students selected for the program in 2014. He designed an app for Android devices that enables people to file police complaints via cell phones, reducing bureaucratic hassle and accelerating police response time.
“Being an InvEnt Scholar has had a tremendous impact on my career,” said Rao, who studies electronics and instrumentation at the Birla Institute of Technology and Science in Pilani, in the Indian state of Rajasthan. “[The program] has gone a long way in helping me execute projects by giving me necessary funds, academic reputation and a sense of confidence so very crucial in pursuing complex research projects. It has opened many closed doors in my career options by proving to be a remarkable stamp of credibility on my résumé.”
Each year the Avery Dennison Foundation, honors InvEent Scholars at an awards ceremony where they show the inventions they’ve worked on during the year. The students’ professors, along with executives from Avery Dennison, attend the ceremony and review the students’ work. Following the ceremony, scholars attend a special one-and-a-half-day workshop on invention. They also tour an Avery Dennison factory. For some, that visit is their first exposure to a corporation.
The Avery Dennison Foundation’s Janet Sandoval says InvEnt Scholarships are intended to do much more than just help students cover their tuition bills.
“What makes the program special is that, in addition to providing support to undergraduate students in STEM fields, it also encourages their innovation capabilities by providing them with access to professional enrichment and opportunities to engage with Avery Dennison leaders,” she said.
Avinash Rao agrees. “Visiting the Avery Dennison plant gave me very good exposure to how a multinational corporation works and what goes into making a successful business venture,” he said. “Specifically, talking with two Avery Dennison researchers helped me realize the magnitude of the importance of legal security in the form of patents and copyrights.”
The InvEnt Scholarship Program is administered by the Institute for International Education, a nonprofit organization that also administers the U.S. Department of State’s Fulbright Scholar Program and many others. To date, the Avery Dennison Scholars Program has provided 116 scholarships.
Sandoval notes that Avery Dennison Corporation, like many companies, has made it a priority to build a pipeline of imaginative, tech-savvy workers who can create products and solutions for a global market increasingly interested in doing things more efficiently and sustainably. “It just makes sense for our Foundation to offer these scholarships in India and China, two parts of the world where Avery Dennison has a large footprint,” she said.
Rao, meanwhile, says the InvEnt experience continues to give him momentum. “The program gave me crucial insight into how people come up with innovative ideas and get them executed,” he said. “The inspiration I derived from the scholarship has given me the confidence to take all my ideas and projects to completion, regardless of the hurdles that come up.”
Read more about the Avery Dennison Foundation, and join the conversation with employees and partners on the Avery Dennison blog.
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