@BiffBrown : Yes. from what I remember the student developing the Ebola kit had some sort of connections at Emory (maybe familial) that allowed the work to be done (assisted and hosted in a lab). As for that sort of apparatus. I don’t think so. I do not imagine that as something that will easily become a part of Emory’s infrastructure though perhaps it should. Stanford doesn’t merely “encourage”, it is also in the prime location for it and has an engineering school. Entrepreneurial endeavors are typically not reasons students come to Emory but have been a reason students go to Stanford for decades now hence the institutionalization of it there. One should think of Stanford as more similar to MIT and perhaps some STEM universities than HYP. Seems like most other non-STEM universities (mainly private, public schools that are strongholds for Tech innovation have gone towards administrative and more centralized apparatuses as well), at the undergraduate level, have efforts that are almost purely student driven (and not really driven by the administration).
At Emory, this could be something that the admins do not pay as much attention to because it doesn’t fit neatly into the a) Big 3 pre-professional slant at Emory (also common at other elite privates) which it has almost over-served to the point it is kind of held hostage to that constituent in STEM (how the chemistry changes passed in light of that, I have no clue. Guess STEM faculty were just “over it”) or/and b) efforts to re-orient toward a more liberal arts intensive undergraduate experience.
Administrative efforts for fostering or managing tech innovation will likely be limited to the research infrastructure at Emory for quite a while unless there is a sudden shift in student demands or interests among those who actually matriculate.