NEWS
NORMAN, Okla. – In just a couple of years, the best canoe slalom paddlers from around the world will descend on Oklahoma City’s RIVERSPORT Rapids to compete in the 2028 Summer Olympics. To help ensure a clean Oklahoma River for the global event, entrepreneurship and engineering students from the University of Oklahoma have helped develop high-impact solutions as part of ongoing cross-disciplinary collaboration.
The project arose through a well-timed series of events: Bruno Teles, Ed.D., an instructor of entrepreneurship at OU’s Price College of Business, sought to develop a fall 2025 class that would allow entrepreneurship and engineering students to learn from each other. After partnering with Doyle Dodd, Ph.D., an associate professor with OU’s Gallogly College of Engineering, Teles was asked if he had a way to help RIVERSPORT’s clean river needs. The new Applied Social Innovation course was a perfect match.
Meeting for classes at the Tom Love Innovation Hub, the Price and Gallogly students quickly learned that logistics would be a major factor in bringing any ideas to life. Different stakeholders had to be contacted along the way, and sometimes, brainstormed solutions had to be brought back to the drawing board. Teles said that when they did overcome obstacles, there was a real sense of achievement.
“It was so realistic. There would be moments that the students thought, ‘Oh my goodness, what are we going to do? How are we going to find a solution?’” Teles said. “They became proud of what they built. They took ownership of the class.”
The course’s interdisciplinary nature also came up throughout the project. For example, Doyle said that while the engineering students originally wanted to use large PVC pipes in solving a task, the entrepreneurship students proposed smaller ones as a more economical option. After running the numbers, the team found that the smaller pipes would accomplish their desired goal while saving money.
“The big takeaway for the engineering students was that all of these costs have to come from somewhere,” Doyle said. “And if we've only got a limited number of resources, then we have to figure out how to make that limited number of resources go as far as possible.”
As part of the course, students worked in the Fabrication Lab in the Innovation Hub. They also spent two class periods at RIVERSPORT for a hands-on experience with the Oklahoma River. Throughout it all, the professors noticed that students cared deeply about the project.
“Engagement for this three-hour class was astronomical,” Doyle said. “Everybody wanted to be part of the discussions. We didn’t have enough tools for everyone who wanted to help construct when it was time to go to the machine shop to start building the prototypes. The amount of student engagement was very encouraging and makes me want to do this class more often.”
While the course has since ended, the professors hope to continue work on the project this upcoming fall semester. Not only do they want to add extra features to further improve the river-cleaning process, but they are also interested in working with contractors to bring the final product to market.
Teles also continued multi-school collaboration through another Applied Social Innovation class this spring semester with Christina Miller, Ph.D., at OU’s Anne and Henry Zarrow School of Social Work. Their efforts brought together entrepreneurship and social work students to help local nonprofit organizations facing challenges.
He noted that business and engineering students who finished the fall course said that they appreciated coordinating with others who had different approaches to thinking about and solving problems.
“In the real world, you're not going to work just with your majors. You're going to work with different people from different backgrounds,” Teles said. “Our students told us the most valuable feature of this course was how we were able to replicate a real work scenario. This class wasn’t just busywork. We did something that was meaningful and had a real impact.”
About the University of Oklahoma
Founded in 1890, the University of Oklahoma is a public research university located in Norman, Oklahoma. As the state’s flagship university, OU serves the educational, cultural, economic and health care needs of the state, region and nation. For more information about the university, visit www.ou.edu.
Entrepreneurship and engineering students from the University of Oklahoma have helped work on ensuring a clean Oklahoma River for the 2028 Summer Olympics. Their collaboration is thanks to a project designed by faculty at OU's Price College of Business and Gallogly College of Engineering.
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