Big Ideas converge everyday at Rutgers
University New Brunswick they're born in
our laboratories researched in the
workplace and actualized on campus
exploring big ideas is fundamental to
the culture of Rutgers it's part of what
made us and national research powerhouse
and why former President Barack Obama called
our history a mirror of the evolution of
America one place that mirror is being
reflected today is that the school of
engineering where the idea illuminated
by the spark may one-day transform the way
we drive last summer we made a seminal
discovery in our laboratory. We are researching
graphene because it's the strongest
material that we we know of
It's one hundred times stronger than steel
why we are interested in it is because metals are
very heavy by their nature and they're very dense
if we can perhaps replace some of that metal with
graphene which is very strong and
lightweight material then we can
increase strength of the metal while
also reducing the weight
Let's say we could do that for a car chassis. That would increase
fuel efficiency while also keeping the car strong
one of the problems with graphene
technology is that there aren't pathways of
making large quantities of graphene
we tried many different methods
But Jacob one of our bright
undergraduates decided to take the
graphene oxide and put in a in a
microwave it's pretty awesome
to have graphene work its way into technology
be super awesome
because I could say yeah, I was successfully yeah I was a part of that
I helped that happen
faculty and students working together is one way big
ideas converge another occurs when
Rutgers enters into a research
partnership with businesses like Moretrench
a new jersey-based industrial
construction company with an esop
culture ESOP is an acronym which
stands for employees shared ownership
plans
employee ownership and profit-sharing is
a is an important idea because it
involves average employees getting
access to share of the profits or share
of the ownership of the company and the reason why
this is important is because for three
decades wages have been flat the
families that are doing really well are
doing well because they get a share
profit so they have some ownership and
entrepreneurial startups or family
business so the idea
now is if wages are flat one way to
rescue the middle class is to provide
more opportunities for profit sharing and
employee stock ownership on top of
fair wages since we have become an ESOP our company's revenue has
grown 10 times the number of employees
probably three times and I
think everyone feels more connected to
their job they're performing for
themselves but also for their peers
when we bring in a new employee every
other employee wants to support them
because they're successful we are all sucessful
with a number of studies we have found
that companies that have employee stock
ownership and various other forms of
partnerships tend to have higher
productivity and better economic performance
every one is rowing in the same direction
"what's good for me is good for everyone else"
everyone has
responsibility it's not defined like
"the company" We are the company so we
solve problems here underground
construction and we are 10 times because
were its employee ownership it has to be
the Rutgers-Moretrench research
collaboration is helping companies to
grow and share their wealth
meanwhile a new app being developed by
these two students may soon increase
campus safety at universities around the
country their big idea?
it's called safe halo a mobile app that
ensure students never have to walk home
alone at night when you're walking home
from the library our party we've all
been in situations college students
where you'll just get on the phone with
your mom or your get on the phone with
your best friend from a different
University and just hey listen i'm
walking home can you be on the phone with me
for 10 minutes so if they feel safe
together because it's two people two
halos in person walking you home
Safe halo is really easy to use we were like
students always on the phone
it would be really awesome to be at a
party and just request a halo while you're
still in that party the halos are
student volunteers who sent in an
application we've reviewed it and then
we hand-selected them to
specifically be the volunteers to help
they'll help us out on the Tuesday or a Wednesday night
and every single night of the week
it is  student volunteers that are
walking the students home we don't
realize it was so close to work every
day on this so we don't really realize
the impact we have until we have a
student or parent reach out to us and say
my daughter was always concerned
about this and now she can use SafeHalo
or I use SafeHalo and I've had this
happen to me in the past and I felt like
this wouldn't happen to me had
SafeHalo had been there
that's kind of something we're really
proud of the impact that we're having
outside of SafeHalo
whether it's making a breakthrough with a microwave using
academic research to transform the way
of business runs or developing an app
that enhances safety big ideas are
moving America Forward and they converge
here at Rutgers new brunswick
