Students in the cohort will join the Innovation Hub with access to additional grant funding, coworking spaces, and mentor guidance on future projects
Third-year Hospitality, Tourism, and Retail Management Ph.D. student and graduate instructor Bogdan Olevskyi was selected to join the Texas Tech Accelerator Cohort for 2021-2022. Students like Olevskyi will have access to funding support, $25,000 grants, co-working space, and mentors during the year-long process.
Olevskyi and research partner Iryna Konopkina stood out in their Accelerator Cohort application with their work on TWINE, an app-based marketplace to foster academic collaboration. Due to the competitive nature of producing publications in academia, Olevskyi says that many researchers' success is determined by how quickly they can accrue publications, leaving little time for further scholarly writing.
TWINE steps into match scholars based on their ideas for collaboration.
"Scholars should team up with each other to complete their publications or research projects together," Olevskyi said. "It is faster and more convenient. But the market still misses an appropriate tool for matching scholars based on their ideas. Scholars need to focus on project-centric collaboration search rather than expanding their professional network for the sake of adding new people to their contact list. As a result, we came up with a solution tailored for academics' needs where scholars will find research partners and collaboration opportunities more effectively."
The app will play the role of a collaboration marketplace for research scholars. Unlike other services, TWINE focuses on meaningful partnerships in the research space. While in the Cohort, Olevskyi says his team plans to utilize the Innovation Hub's resources to identify business strategies for commercializing TWINE.
"We will learn important aspects of marketing, operation management, and product development," Olevskyi explained. "Because the company's mission is to accelerate collaboration among scholars, it requires a deep understanding of user needs. With the mentors' help, we will gain valuable insights regarding implementing the idea to the market. Additionally, we will go through the steps of the legal establishment of the TWINE."
Olevskyi says he chose the doctoral program in Hospitality and Retail Management for its curriculum that follows the latest market trends and requirements, something crucial in his development of TWINE.
"Each faculty member shares priceless experiences and unique knowledge that students can absorb during a Ph.D. program," Olevskyi said. "It was obvious that the unique combination of a highly-developed institutional infrastructure and effective mentorship will provide the best possible opportunity for me to become a top-tier scholar."