The best businesses are born from your bug list.

"That's the list of all the stuff that bugs you all day, every day," said Cara Osborne, an entrepreneur who has launched various successful companies ranging from free-standing birth centers to her current bourbon line. "That's the source for your inspiration."

Osborn shared her top, hard-won entrepreneurial advice with College of Education and Health Professions students at the second annual Innovate for Healthcare and Education (I4HE) Academy. Dean Kate Mamiseishvili started I4HE to demystify entrepreneurship and create more opportunities for the college's students to develop innovative mindsets and skills through classroom and hands-on experiential learning.

The event connected students, faculty and local education and health professionals to learn about the principles of design thinking related to complex health and education problems in Arkansas. Students from multiple programs in the college — future teachers, nurses, occupational therapists and speech-language pathologists — participated in the event.

"Who better to design solutions for children in a classroom or patients in a hospital room?" Mamiseishvili said. "As practitioners in the caring professions, our students will eventually have a front-row seat to problems in various education and health spaces, so they will be the best equipped to generate solutions. I4HE gives students tools and resources to become innovative, entrepreneurial thinkers and doers."

Osborne told students her businesses have all come from a desire to solve problems for the people around her, especially her friends. That was especially true for the Birth Center of Northwest Arkansas, her first business venture.

She advised students, "As you go through your day today, one of the most important things is getting at what problem you're trying to solve. I knew exactly what problem I was trying to solve. I was trying to solve the problem of my girlfriends who were having these terrible birth experiences and didn't have other options."

Osborn, who has a master's in nursing from Vanderbilt University and a master's and doctorate in public health from the Harvard School of Public Health, was previously a nurse midwife and clinician before teaching in the College of Education and Health Professions' Eleanor Mann School of Nursing. She was also a faculty member in the Sam M. Walton College of Business. She's currently a senior fellow at Heartland Forward in Bentonville and a maternal health subject matter expert for Ingeborg Initiatives.

Osborne considers herself an "accidental entrepreneur" who only embraced the role after a colleague in the business school, Sarah Goforth, explained that being an entrepreneur is "just using business tools to solve problems."

Kylie Lovett, a public health graduate student in the Department of Health, Human Performance and Recreation, said Osborne's descriptions of combining her love for people with business solutions were inspiring.

"She made me want to get up right that minute and start five new businesses," Lovett joked. "I had lots of plans that morning to improve the lives of many diabetics."

After Osborne's keynote address, consultant Jessica Salmon, who has extensive experience leading companies and communities through the design thinking and transformational change process, led the academy group through several brainstorming exercises. Then, four teams of students, faculty members from the college's various programs and community members who work in education and health fields were asked to come up with solutions for an "Arkansan" who was facing a healthcare problem. The teams were asked to consider a day in the person's life, their hopes and dreams, and — most importantly — their key frustrations.

The overarching theme of the design process was how to increase access to quality healthcare in Arkansas.

The teams presented their solutions to a panel of faculty who judged their projects based on various criteria, including empathy for the patient and a solution that was both innovative and viable.

"Imagine you've just woken up. You feel like you can't get out of bed. You're exhausted. You know that you need to get your two oldest, 11 and 9, to school. And your eight-week-old needs to be fed and have a diaper change. You can hear him crying in the next room. Your partner is on a 24-hour shift, and it's all on you," Erin Popejoy, associate professor in counselor education program, told the judges. "Your closest family and support is four hours away. You need to call your son's school again to advocate for his learning needs. You need to decide what's for dinner, and you need to make it. There's laundry to be done. And dishes. You love your kids and family but feel like you're downing."

Amanda Scoggin, school counselor at Don Tyson School of Innovation in Springdale, clarified the problem: "Why is this important? Because every year 400,000 babies are born to mothers with depression. Mental health conditions like postpartum depression are one of the leading causes of pregnancy-related deaths."

Popejoy and Scoggin were on the winning team, which also included Hannah Cheung, a doctoral student in the Counselor Education program, and Olivia MacDonald, a senior in the Communication Sciences and Disorders program.

They were asked to create a solution for Paloma, the woman in their provided scenario. The team developed an app called Mom Unity: Moms Helping Moms to connect Paloma with a community of other mothers.

"The idea of this is that connection with others in the community can help alleviate the symptoms of depression and anxiety of being a new mom, being postpartum," Cheung said. "The goal of this app is to foster connection and support, connecting individuals to resources tailored to their specific needs and wants."

The last event of the day was a fireside chat with local health and education leaders about how they expect innovation to change their fields in the future. The panel included Scoggin; Erin Goodwin, vice president of clinical services at Arisa Health; Shaina Meyer, an occupational therapy faculty member; and Sean Huddleston, an alumnus and athletic trainer at Shiloh Christian School.

They all noted that the students in the room would have the opportunity to problem-solve differently, as a new generation of practitioners. Goodwin encouraged them to speak up in their new roles post-graduation and share ideas for positive change with leadership. "You'll see things they might not notice," she said.

Each student received an academy certificate for participating in the academy.

Caroline Stewart, a senior in the Communication Sciences and Disorders program, said her favorite part of the Innovate for Healthcare and Education Academy was collaborating with people from various backgrounds to solve problems for people in Arkansas. Her design team approached the problem from different angles, including nursing, athletic training, public health and speech-language pathology.

"With all our backgrounds from various healthcare niches, it was so fascinating to see how all our different ideas and perspectives influenced our healthcare solution," she said.