Key Outcomes for NSF Grant #1912070 --- Targeted Infusion Project: STEM-Business Focused Logistics and International Trade (LIT) Analytics

1-  Establishing STEM-Business Focused Logistics and International Trade (LIT) Analytics Center of Excellence @ University of the District of Columbia (UDC): The center was established jointly by the UDC School of Business and Public Administration and UDC School of Engineering and Applied Sciences in August 2019. More information can be found at https://www.udc.edu/sbpa/lit/.

2-  Introducing a new Logistics and International Trade (LIT) Analytics Concentration open to Business and Engineering majors: The new LIT Analytics Concentration was approved by the UDC Faculty Senate and UDC Chief Academic Officer (CAO) in Spring 2020. More information can be found at https://www.udc.edu/sbpa/lit/lit-concentration-logistics/.

3-   Uniqueness and Popularity of LIT Concentration over the grant period and beyond: LIT is the first of its kind program in the District of Columbia and Metropolitan Area, offering students an advantage and competitive edge in the job market. Overall, there are 107 students in the LIT concentration program. 88 UDC students have graduated with LIT Concentration since its inception. LIT Concentration is increasingly popular due to real-life, experiential industry interactions (through X-Culture Project from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro (www.x-culture.org), and engaging SAP (a German company) industry-grade software used by Fortune 500 companies taught as a part of Global Logistics and Supply Chain Management).

4-   Establishing the LIT Undergraduate Students' Ambassador Program @ UDC: The LIT Analytics Center has recruited and supported 25 undergraduate students as LIT Ambassadors from interdisciplinary programs (Business Management, Finance, Accounting, Biology, Civil / Mechanical Engineering, and Computer Science) and these LIT Ambassadors conduct and manage outreach activities like UDC Summer Academy targeted at high school students every year, SAP University Alliances Program aimed at industry know-how and software knowledge targeted at global supply chains, etc. More information can be found at https://www.udc.edu/sbpa/lit/lit-ambassadors/.

5-   Establishing a Study / Research Abroad program for UDC Undergraduate Students in UNITED KINGDOM as a part of LIT Analytics: 14 UDC students (6 UDC students during Summer 2022 and 8 UDC students during Summer 2023 across the disciplines of Management, Computer Science, Electrical Engineering, Marketing, Accounting, and Finance) have successfully participated, conducted research in the areas of design innovation in business, design thinking, sustainability, and international fashion marketing, and positively impacted through LIT Center's Summer Study Abroad Program through our collaboration with Nottingham Trent University (NTU), Nottingham, UK. NTU, UK is the TOP 5 Research Universities in the United Kingdom and NTU is the WINNER of the Queen?s Award in Sustainability for the past five years. More information can be found at https://www.udc.edu/sbpa/lit/udc-study-abroad/.

6-   Publications in Peer-Reviewed Journals and Presentations in the National and International Conferences: Through the TIP-LIT center grant, the PI, Dr. Anshu Arora published 10 research papers in peer reviewed journals along with other Co-PIs and researchers. Additionally, the PI co-edited two books published by Palgrave Macmillan from UK (in collaboration with Springer Nature, USA) in International Marketing and Management Research (IMMR) Series titled "MANAGING SOCIAL ROBOTICS AND SOCIO-CULTURAL BUSINESS NORMS: PARALLEL WORLDS OF EMERGING AI AND HUMAN VIRTUES" (2022: https://link.springer.com/book/9783031048661) and another book titled "SUSTAINABLE INNOVATION" (2020: https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-3-030-30421-8). The 2022 MANAGING SOCIAL ROBOTICS AND SOCIO-CULTURAL BUSINESS NORMS: PARALLEL WORLDS OF EMERGING AI AND HUMAN VIRTUES book contains chapters by 12 UDC students as co-authors who are mentored by the UDC faculty. Furthermore, our UDC student researchers have been presenting their research at various National and International Conferences such as the ACM/IEEE International Conference on Human-Robot Interaction, Northeast Decision Sciences (NEDSI) Conference, American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) Conference, and Academy of International Business Southeast (AIB-SE) Conference over the past four years.

7-   UDC Annual Research Conferences: LIT Centerhas supported four annual research conferences at UDC during December every year since 2020 until present. Every year, 35+ UDC students participate and present their research during these annual conferences. Last year, 39 UDC students with 33 posters presented their research at the 2022 5^th UDC Annual Research Conference on December 1, 2022 - https://www.udc.edu/sbpa/lit/2022-5th-annual-business-research-conference/.

8-   LIT Analytics Program's Overall Impact: LIT Center has positively impacted 150+ UDC students either directly (whereby 107 undergraduate students are in the LIT Concentration program, there are 25 LIT Ambassadors, and 14 UDC students have received NSF study abroad scholarship stipends for study / research abroad in the United Kingdom); or indirectly (whereby 114 students have conducted and presented their research at the UDC Annual Research Conferences every year in December since 2020 until 2022, 113 UDC students have been exposed to SAP Enterprise Resource Planning software from the German Company, SAP SE through the LIT Center @ UDC, and 128 UDC students (72 undergraduate and 56 MBA graduate students) have successfully completed X-Culture global entrepreneurship internship project with University of North Carolina @ Greensboro).

Last Modified: 10/25/2023
Modified by: Anshu Arora