Passion Project Challenge

Ready? It’s the Spring 2023 Passion Project Challenge!

Join the Passion Project Challenge this semester to kindle your passion, gain in-demand skills, and connect with our SBCC community in a new, fun, and meaningful way. We invite everyone at SBCC—students, faculty, and staff—to to pick up the challenge to implement and share your Passion Projects!

A Passion Project is a self-directed project to achieve a specific mission and outcome that demonstrates your unique values, ambition, skills, interests, creativity, and leadership.  It doesn’t have to be complex. One thing that unites us all is our unique passions, values, and missions. Channeling yours into a Passion Project and sharing it with others cultivates an unmatched sense of belonging and engagement among students, faculty, and staff.

The Passion Project Challenge features a weekly Passion Project Power Hour that includes a YouTube livestream podcast with live chat and a simultaneous in-person watch party in the BC Building lobby incubator space to support your Passion Project design and implementation, and also build community.  The podcast features guest speakers from around the world who will address important topics to support the success of your Passion Project. Each podcast is immediately followed by the in-person Passion Project Studio in the BC Building lobby with special guests from our campus community to assist your progression.

See What Our Passion Project Community is Up To …

What’s Happening This Week

Passion Project Power Hour

Friday, April 21st, 2-3 PM (PDT)

In-Person in the BC Lobby & Online 

Podcast: How to Protect Your Business Idea

Studio:  Live Q&A regarding legal protection for your business idea with a business attorney and our community of dreamers, designers, makers, and doers.

Spring 2023 Weekly Power Hour Schedule

Are you ready for more? Spring 2023 finds many students, faculty, staff, institutions, businesses, and organizations ready to reclaim their mojo, identify new and lost passions, rekindle a vision, and act on the sense of overall readiness to take on something new. Is this you? A Passion Project is a great way to kickstart action toward something crazy good that aligns with your interests and creates the experience and impact you’re after. Join us for this semester’s Power Hour lineup that will help you do just that.

Below you’ll find our Power Hour schedule for the entire spring semester. Mark your calendar with these important dates. (And if you don’t think you have time, be sure to attend on March 3rd!) See you there!

1. Friday, February 10th, 2-3 p.m.

• Podcast: Passion Projects: Proof of Their Power. Three members of our SBCC Passion Project community will share how their projects have helped them advance in launching ventures, advancing professionally, learning new skills, and transferring to a 4-year university. Live Q/A. Watch the video here.
• Studio: Catch up and hang out with the Passion Project community! All are welcome to join us for this social meetup. Bring your friends and connect with other designers, makers, and doers at SBCC!

2. Friday, February 24th, 2-3 p.m.

• Podcast: Innovations in 3D Printing. Learn how 3D Printing is being used to create innovation in the housing, medical, and manufacturing/prototyping industries, with Anna Cheniuntai, founder of Apis Core who is leading the 3D printed housing project in Santa Barbara; Fatou Juka Darboe, Managing Director of Make3D Company Ltd., the first and only 3D printing company in The Gambia focusing on 3D printing in healthcare; and Michael Bales, cofounder of the SB Hackerspace. Watch video here.
• Studio: Make It or Break It at the SBCC Makerspace. Unleash your creativity and join the Makerspace Movement at SBCC. Learn about no-cost opportunities for 3D printing & prototyping at the Makerspace to advance your best product idea with Armando Arias Del Cid and the ASG.

3. Friday, March 3rd, 2-3 p.m.

• Podcast: Project Leadership Made Simple. Do you struggle with finding the time, inspiration, and follow-through to start and advance your self-directed projects? Gain simple tools and insights to solve these roadblocks so you can lead your Passion Project toward the meaningful outcomes you’re after.
• Studio: This is the place: Connect. Think. Design. Make. Do! Gain hands-on assistance with your Passion Project and project leadership while connecting with our community of dreamers, designers, makers, and doers who are bringing their best ideas to life. Watch video here.

4. Friday, March 10th, 2-3 p.m.

• Podcast: Define your Personal Brand. Is your personal brand what you think it is? Learn what a personal brand is, the importance of self-branding to be a person of influence, how to define a personal brand that represents who you are and what matters to you, how to consciously use it, and why all of this is especially important now. Our guest is entrepreneur, speaker, LinkedIn Learning Instructor, and LinkedIn Top Voice 2023, Marielle Legair.
• Studio: Gain hands-on assistance with your Passion Project and the elevation of your personal brand while connecting with our community of dreamers, designers, makers, and doers who are bringing their best ideas to life. Watch video here.

5. Friday, March 17th, 2-3 p.m.

• Podcast: Build Your Network on LinkedIn. Learn the fundamentals of building your network on LinkedIn with entrepreneur, leadership consultant, author, and certified coach and facilitator, Javier Llerena.
• Studio: Join us for hands-on assistance with your LinkedIn profile and your Passion Project while connecting with our community of dreamers, designers, makers, and doers. Watch video here.

6. Friday, March 24th, 2-3 p.m.

• Podcast: Build Your High-Impact Community.  Learn how to build your community of followers as a person of influence to create the positive impact, experience, and outcomes you’re after.
• Studio:  Gain a tool to develop your community-building plan and get help with your Passion Project while connecting with our community of dreamers, designers, makers, and doers. Watch video here.

7. Friday, April 7, 2-3 p.m.

• Podcast: Optimize your Breathing for Peak Performance. Would you welcome finding greater ease in your effort toward objectives you hold important? Join us to learn breathing hacks based on neuroscience that will make you more steady and productive, and help you manage your mental and emotional states. Watch video here.
• Studio: Define your action plan to optimize YOUR peak performance and advance your Passion Project while connecting with our community of dreamers, designers, makers, and doers.

8. Friday, April 14, 2-3 p.m.

• Podcast: Manage Your Leadership Derailers. You can’t change what you’re not aware of. Learn about the most common leadership derailers to peak performance and strategies to master them for a better life experience. Watch video here.
• Studio: Discover a tool to gain insight into your leadership derailers and obtain assistance with your Passion Project and Scheinfeld NVC entry while connecting with our community of dreamers, designers, makers, and doers.

9. Friday, April 21, 2-3 p.m.

• Podcast: How to Protect Your Business Idea. Are you advancing your business idea? Learn what to protect, when, and how.
• Studio: Get your questions answered about legal protection for your best ideas during this interactive Q&A discussion with business attorneys and our community of dreamers, designers, makers, and doers.

10. Friday, April 28th, 13th Annual Scheinfeld New Venture Challenge

• Virtual Business Plan & Pitch Competition.  Is your project a business idea? Join college and high school students from throughout Santa Barbara County presenting their best 8-minute pitch in pursuit of $15,000 in cash awards and in-kind opportunities. Collegiate competition 2-4:20 PM; High School competition 4:30-7 PM. Livestreamed on YouTube. Details here.

11. Friday, May 5th, 2-3 p.m. Passion Project & Scheinfeld NVC Showcase & Celebration

• Let’s showcase and celebrate breakthroughs among our Passion Project community with the Scheinfeld NVC finalists & winners, and then enjoy some pizza!

What’s YOUR Passion Project?

A Passion Project is a self-directed project to achieve a specific mission and outcome that demonstrates your unique values, ambition, strengths, interests, creativity, and leadership. It kindles your passion and sparks your joy and enthusiasm; it’s focused on something you genuinely care about. A Passion Project showcases your values and demonstrates why they’re important to you.

Along the way, you develop valuable skills and gain confidence in your capacity to create positive impact. Interestingly, sharing your Passion Project also inspires others and helps build community and belonging by adding new dimensions to our interconnection.

Passion Projects can be relatively simple or complex; they can be small or large scale. Some examples of Passion Projects include creating a blog, podcast, or YouTube channel and promoting it to gain followers; creating products or services; launching an e-commerce site or mobile app; designing and implementing a community project or event series for social good; publishing a book or articles in journals, newspapers, or other media; conducting and publishing research; completing project-based internships; or inventing something that solves a real-world problem. The foundational element is the connection between your passion, creativity, and commitment to creating positive impact to make the world an even better place.

Podcast Video Library

Check out our past podcasts to level up your Passion Project!

• Identify your Passion with career strategist and entrepreneur, Licia Dewing, from Cape Town, South Africa.
• Entrepreneurship as a Way of Life with innovation and collaboration expert, Topi Järvinen,  joining us all the way from Helsinki, Finland.
• Kindling Your Passion Through Self Care with mental health & wellness/travel writer and editor, Kristina Lopez, from Orlando, Florida.
• Cultivating Action-Oriented Expression with Gregg Vanourek, award-winning author, speaker, teacher, entrepreneur, and coach on life design and leadership. Co-author of “LIFE Entrepreneurs” and “Triple Crown Leadership” from Denver, Colorado.
• Passion Project to Business Launch with local Santa Barbara entrepreneurs Silvia Franco Comer and Jacob Zander. 
• Passion Project to Intrapreneurship with business strategist, innovator, and growth hacker Moyosola Okoye from Paris, France. Learn about intrapreneurship and how to apply entrepreneurship within an existing organization to drive innovation and business performance.
  
• Leveraging Your Passion Project to Stand Out in your College Applications with former community college student and entrepreneur, Max Tang.
• Nail Your Job Interview Using Passion Projects with Valerie Eurman & Christina Maguire, SBCC Career Center.
• Passion Project to 4-Year Transfer with Marisol Cota, SBCC Transfer Center.
• Fund Your Passion Project with Dr. Laura Woyach.
• Pitch Your Passion Project in 1-Minute with Scheinfeld Center executive director, intrapreneur, and Entrepreneurship Program educator, Julie Samson, and the Scheinfeld Center team.

How Do I Get Started?

The hardest thing about any worthwhile project is getting started and maintaining momentum, but we’ve got you covered. The Jack & Julie Nadel School of Business & Entrepreneurship and the Scheinfeld Center for Entrepreneurship & Innovation are providing the support you need to jumpstart and showcase your Passion Project this semester!

Students, faculty, and staff are invited to participate and gain targeted support in three important ways:

1. Join our Scheinfeld Innovators Community LinkedIn group. The Scheinfeld Innovators Community LinkedIn group provides the platform for updates, resources, support, and connections to help everyone bring their Passion Projects to life. Develop your LinkedIn profile and build your professional network and social capital. Click to join the Scheinfeld Innovators Community LinkedIn group.
2. Participate in our weekly Passion Project Power Hour held weekly from 2 p.m. to 3 p.m. on Fridays starting September 9th and extending through December 2nd to support participants with the design, implementation, and sharing of their Passion Projects. (Hybrid format) 
3. Showcase your Passion Project during the Passion Project Showcase on November 18th. (Hybrid format)

Questions?

Please contact the Scheinfeld Center director, Julie Samson, with any questions: 805.965.0581 ext. 3643, or jasamson@sbcc.edu.  To receive updates about the Passion Project Challenge please join the Scheinfeld Innovators Community LinkedIn group. For updates on other Scheinfeld Center activities, please subscribe to the Scheinfeld Center’s monthly e-news.