Over the coming months, look for videos, stories and events that feature some of the many Wayne State initiatives and passionate individuals committed to impacting their communities through innovation and entrepreneurship. This content is part of WSU's Warriors in Action campaign highlighting how Wayne State is making a difference.

Lisa Podnar is facing a professional challenge. Her client, the manufacturer of a biometric gun lock, wants to convey that his product is manufactured in Detroit. But, because select components are made outside the country, the Federal Trade Commission will not approve a “Made in the USA” stamp.

Podnar’s team has designed a website mockup for their client, and their solution is to include subtle hints indicating the company’s Detroit base. The homepage background is a large photo snapped by Podnar on the Detroit riverfront featuring the Spirit of Detroit, the Renaissance Center and an American flag at half-mast. The “About” section explains the client’s roots in metro Detroit; his affiliation with TechTown Detroit, the Wayne State-affiliated business incubator that is a hub for Motor City innovation; and his belief that, given the city’s manufacturing history and “get it done” ethos, his product could not be made anywhere else.

The approach is worthy of any high-priced marketing firm. But Podnar is an undergraduate in Professor Jared Grogan’s Technical Communications 3050 class, and this is no textbook exercise. Omer Kiyani has been developing IDENTILOCK — a quick-release gun lock that uses fingerprint-recognition technology — working closely with the Labs team at TechTown. Kiyani is on the cusp of becoming a true Detroit startup success story: an automotive engineer who has helped design airbags, he left the comforts of full-time employment to pursue an idea he knew could make a difference. He’s certain his product can save lives, and after the violence at Sandy Hook Elementary School in 2012, he felt he needed to bring it to market.

In January 2016, two-and-a-half years after entering TechTown’s Venture Accelerator, Kiyani launched IDENTILOCK at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. Kiyani and his company, Sentinl, have received a wealth of press coverage. But media attention does not directly translate into sales, and Kiyani needed to pre-sell enough units to start production as well as attract additional investment. It’s the age-old chicken-egg startup conundrum — you can’t generate sales without marketing, and you can’t pay for marketing without sales.

Grogan and the WSU Technical Writing Initiative could not have entered the picture at a better time. Kiyani had just returned from Las Vegas when Grogan and Wayne State University Professor Jeff Pruchnic met with TechTown’s Labs team to discuss possible collaborations. The match was obvious. “The complete context of this project makes a writing teacher happy,” explains Grogan, who worked briefly in advertising before pursuing research and teaching at Wayne State. “The fact that Kiyani’s product is designed to have social impact made the project especially appealing,” he adds.

Launched in 2015, The Technical Writing Initiative is being developed alongside the rhetoric and composition program’s award-winning Community Writing Initiative, in which WSU students provide communications and marketing support to community organizations. As the Sentinl project demonstrates, the writing may be highly technical, intended for general audiences, or both. Last year, Grogan’s students wrote code, conducted user experience and user interface analyses, and developed a marketing strategy for Golfler, a highly touted app for ordering food and beverage on the golf course that was developed by Wayne Law students and alums.

“They learned a lot about project management and a lot about the role of reflection and metacognition,” Grogan observes. “At the same time, their work is written in documents that give them signposts as they move forward.”

In addition to the website and technical manual, Grogan’s students, both undergraduate and graduate across three classes, are assisting Sentinl with social media strategy, blog posts, an e-book and market research. The experience the students gain is invaluable — and marks just one of many ways Wayne State, TechTown and Detroit’s entrepreneurial community benefit from the ever-evolving partnership between the university and the nonprofit business hub it founded with Henry Ford Health System and General Motors in 2000.

“Having TechTown literally partnered with Wayne State is so beneficial,” Grogan says. “I think this is going to be a flagship collaboration.”