When Horizon Hall opens on George Mason University’s Fairfax Campus in the spring of 2021, one of the highlights will be the space devoted to the Mason Innovation Exchange (MIX). The MIX @ Fenwick will be relocated from its current home in Fenwick Library.
The MIX @ Innovation will remain in Innovation Hall.
“We are proud to continue to have a space where Mason [community members have] the opportunity to collaborate across disciplines and launch their new ideas to the world,” said Karen Livingston, who heads up Mason’s Office of Entrepreneurship and Innovation.
She and innovations program manager Amanda Jarvis, who is a bachelor of individualized study student, have led the build-out programs supporting innovators and entrepreneurs in anticipation of the move next year. Due to the challenge presented by the coronavirus pandemic, the university will not open the MIX during the Fall 2020 semester.
The new space will have a media lab, expanded maker and prototyping capabilities, and a launchpad where student entrepreneurs can incubate their ideas.
The MIX was Mason’s first makerspace, purposely run by students and open to all members of the Mason community, and is now well regarded for collaborations with others across campus via education, research and practice.
It opened its first location in Innovation Hall in 2015 and was the inspiration of then-Mason student, Jade Garrett, BS Applied Information Technology ’15, who teamed up with a group of like-minded students to create a space, open to all members of the Mason community, with access to equipment for prototyping new products.
The MIX has continued to grow in a number of locations and services to meet demand, providing resources and facilitating connections for students, faculty, and staff. The Mason community comes together at the MIX to be part of its innovation and entrepreneurial culture; to network, have open access to tools and maker equipment, innovate and receive startup mentoring and support. Mason staff will look at opportunities to provide virtual services this fall to maintain that culture, and to restructure operations for re-opening in the future.
Under the Office of Entrepreneurship and Innovation the MIX has hosted an entrepreneurship accelerator—supercharging student ideas and bringing them to market. In support of academic research, the MIX supports faculty research such as with Volgenau School of Engineering professor Craig Yu on his recent National Science Foundation Career award proposal for virtual reality research.
The MIX team sponsors and mentors student projects around national and global innovation challenges, including the Growing Beyond Earth Challenge sponsored by NASA and Fairchild Botanical Garden. Community outreach has led to partnerships with faculty and departments such as the Office of Sustainability around topics such as sustainable fashion.
Unique to the MIX is the team of student makers from many disciplines who develop and lead weekly skill-sharing workshops at the MIX on 3D design and printing, sewing, electronics, virtual reality, video editing, laser cutting, prototyping and more.
Jarvis, who started as one of the student workshop instructors teaching soft circuits and wearable electronics, said, “I am proud to lead a team of skilled student makers who are eager to share what they know with others in the Mason community every day.”