Tuesday, March 3, 2026

Innovation Springs Interview 1

Ariana Pasquini, Student

Interview Transcript

Links Mentioned

Interview Transcript

Welcome to Innovation Springs. I'm your host, Hayley Blackburn, Innovation and Design Librarian, Program Director at C3 Innovation, and affiliate faculty with the Center for Research Frontiers in Digital Humanities. Now, this show spotlights the folks doing cool things across education, research, business, and thought leadership.

Today's guest is a student joining me to unpack her experiences in entrepreneurship, innovation, and creativity. You'll definitely want to hear about her short film project.

You can find more information and notes about the show at c3innovation.uccs.edu. Let's dive into the spring.

My name is Ariana Pasquini. I'm the event and marketing coordinator of EPIIC. And I am a full-time student as well as someone who is working two jobs. So EPIIC is just part of my constant chaos, but it's my favorite part. Oh, so yeah, part of a much larger portfolio. Yes. 

What are you studying?

I'm studying communications with a focus in media studies and a minor in business. 

Oh, what kind of led you into that combination? 

That's a great question. My parents opened a business when I was in high school that I became very involved in. We own a children's play center in like the Centennial Highlands Ranch kind of area. It's a 13,000 square foot focused on like the social and emotional development of kiddos zero to six. And I was super involved in it from a really young age behind scenes. And so, I was our event manager at like freshly 17. I was doing our PR campaign. So, I was going to there's this big program that happens in the Denver area called Bumps and Babies. And I'd go and I'd promote our big and little classes.

I did social media campaigns, and I had a lot of fun with it. We hid an elf around. I came up with this idea to hide an elf on the shelf in all of these areas in our different imaginative town. So, it's like we have like a tiny fire station and a tiny vets office and everything. So, I hid this little elf all over and I posed on my photograph. I edited it and then I rolled it out in a campaign. And it was so fun that when I went to school I was like, oh, I love this actually. I think this is really fun. It was really cool that I had gotten the experience to do it hands on. 

So, when I went into school I knew I wanted to kind of keep in that trajectory. 

Yeah. It's amazing. As a communication major myself that also got into it because I found that campaign sort of storytelling, planning, producing content to help other people share their story was so fun. Yes. Totally. I love that. So, do you then your goal is to work in PR or do you want to go more like back to your family's business or what's some of the goals? 

I love my family's business. I think it is something that I am so unbelievably proud of, but that is their passion, not necessarily mine. So, I don't plan to go back there. I help out when I can. We do like a Princess Palooza every year and that's my favorite day of the year because all the kiddos come dressed up and we've got like the live princesses. And so that's really fun. But that's definitely not the end goal. 

I really have found a love in the bigger planning of things. So, I really like the event coordination part of my job. I've worked in similar positions after my family's business and now here where I was really tackling that event side of things that I really love. I love brand creation. So, I really like building the bigger picture. I've realized I don't love the marketing aspect. So even though that's a key part of my title here, it definitely is probably my least favorite part. So, I think I like this idea of building a bigger idea, helping navigate and like put the puzzle pieces together to actually create that idea into actual practice. Yeah. So those are probably my favorite parts of the job.

Innovation or sort of creative sort of new, insightful thinking sounds like a big piece of that. So how do you actually define like innovation for yourself and for your field? 

I think that that is a great question. I think innovation in and of itself is tackling something in a new way. And I think that it can happen in so many different outlooks, whether it's creating something from a from the ground up or taking something that we know is going to be a new thing. And making it better just in the way that you're approaching it.

I don't think you can have innovation without inspiration. Something has to lead you to finding that new approach. Right. You're not going to do it on accident. You have to have the inspiration to want it to happen. I think about the ventures that I interact with. 

I think about the small businesses that I interact with. They saw a problem. They were inspired to fix that problem. They come up with an innovative solution. 

Yeah. I love that. The kind of real intention behind it as well. And I especially appreciate that because I feel like for many people, you know, they may feel like, oh, I'm not a creative person or like I'm not an innovator. But to me, because there's some intention behind it, like you can be. It's really kind of a skill that we can practice, we can build when we see a problem. We can take also some known sort of strategies and steps to kind of build up our innovative spirit. 

Totally. Yeah. I think kind of going off of that, I think there's so many people who do not consider themselves innovative but are doing very innovative things. And I think they're scared or it feels like innovation has to be in the STEM world when it totally isn't. And innovation that I have in my daily life is that I have a clean laundry basket and I put my clean clothes in the laundry basket because I know I'm not going to hang them up right away. And so, for me, that was an innovative choice that I made to like to make my environment work better for me. 

Right. I don't think innovative has to be in such a grand scale. All the time. All the time. 

Exactly. Yeah. 

That starts at the small scale. And yeah, that's like everyday innovations or what some might consider the sort of small C creativity. It's like in my own kind of sphere, circle, here's a problem. Here's how I'm going to fix it. Probably a unique way, inherently unique to you and your situation. So, I really like that reminder of what's about innovation.

Now, thinking about that innovation, problem solving in your sort of hyper local way, are there any like classes or projects that you've worked on while a student here or with EPIIC that really spoke to like, wow, that was really inspiring and set me on an innovation path. 

Oh, gosh, like a gazillion. Actually, the way that I got my job at EPIIC is that Luke, who's the strategic program developer of EPIIC, he was my professor or like assistant professor with another one of my professors, Angus, in innovation 1010. And I was taking a class on innovation on campus. 

I actually wanted to change my degree path into the Bachelors of Innovation degree paths because I was so enthralled by it. And it was so interesting to me. It just didn't end up working out. It was going to add quite a lot of time. And I was already a transfer student. I already took a gap year. I was like, not for good. But if I could do it all over again, I would. And I would get a B.I. degree because I think it's something that's so unique to this campus and what we are building in the Springs. And I do really, really love that. 

But I was taking innovation 1010 while I was on this process of like working with Ben Kwitek, who's one of the guys who has created the B.I. And I loved it. It was so fun. It was just, I really like to be challenged. I like to be challenged at work. I like to be challenged in my classes. And in the department here that I was in, I was feeling not super challenged. I was feeling like I didn't love the content of a lot of my classes or that I'd done a lot of hands-on work and so it kind of felt repetitive to me. And I knew that it was going to benefit me at some point in some ways. But like, it was so fun and refreshing to feel challenged and to like have people in my classes who were also coming up with really, really creative answers. 

I felt like in a lot of my other classes, like I would put in a lot of work, and I don't know if I would see the same kind of across the board. But in this innovation class, like I'd go in and there'd be people with like the craziest ideas that I would have never thought of. And I loved it because it made me want to come up with a better idea and come up with a better idea. And I really don't think I had thought of myself as innovative prior to that. I think I had maybe thought of myself as creative, but I didn't see those two things hand in hand. Yeah, it's connected. Yeah, so taking that class was super fun and at the exact same time I was taking Intro to Entrepreneurship with Gail Richards and Carolyn... 

Gary. 

Yes, Carolyn Gary. And that also offered that where I was coming up with new concepts and new brands and new designs and that was so much fun to take those in tandem. And I think it was just a really, really cool group of things. 

I also have just had a great handful of professors while being here. I loved Andrea Baker. I took Principles and Practices of Advertising with her, and I remember on maybe like the second day of classes I asked her, is there any ethical way to do marketing? Okay, oh, good question. And she spent the entire semester answering it. So, at the very last, or like one of the last classes, she came in with a presentation basically answering that question because she was also like, huh. Is there an ethical way to do marketing? And I really liked it. I think it shifted my perspective and I think it shifted her perspective and I really loved engaging with that.

[10:01:23]

I also had two professors in the film department, Mark and Ralph, who were just amazing and constantly challenged me to create what I now think is one of my best pieces of like creative work, which was a screenplay I made in their class. So, I think there's a lot of professors here who really push this idea of innovation and challenging and like shifting mindsets to come to answers and I'm really grateful of that. 

I think that's been my biggest takeaway from UCCS, not necessarily the class content itself, but how that content is delivered and manipulated to kind of bring that out of you. 

Yeah, I'm so happy to hear that you had such a great like experience. And I definitely heard, you know, so in C3 Innovation, kind of our big things are, you know, creativity, curiosity and community. And those are kind of the three key ingredients sort of in our innovation recipe. And even as you're speaking, I was like, yes, the like community kind of helped you see yourself as an innovator. 

You already had the creativity and then you mentioned with like these projects that pushed you or challenged you like help foster more of that curiosity. 

Totally. Like, yes, like that's how innovation like can spark. I love that. 

Now you alluded to a lot of different projects. Is there one that you, you know, are most excited about, most memorable? 

That's a great question. I'm gonna pivot to EPIIC because I think that I face that a lot. Everything that I have done in EPIIC has been nothing what I expected to do in EPIIC. I think I came on, I was already working a pretty hefty job at the time, already in school full time. And I was like; I don't really know if I have the time for this. But like, I think it'd be a really cool opportunity. And I came in with the idea that I was going to be making like a social media post, like a couple social media posts a week. Yeah. I ended up doing a lot more. 

And I think it's because Luke and I work really well together. And so, he was constantly challenging me, and I was constantly challenging him. And I think we just kind of built each other up. But some like really fun projects was creating this studio. I had to do a lot of research for it about equipment and just things like that.

Great job. Like we're so happy to be here on the set. Like I think it's fantastic. 

It was really, really fun. And like I would not have said that I was versed in like cameras in general. But I mean now I feel very confident in the Adobe Creative Suite and like got super into photo editing, super into video editing and that kind of thing. Which was really, really fun and challenging. 

I also think that like I am working with Ventures in the garage here at UCCS and that is constantly putting me in innovating projects because they are all coming up with brand new ideas. And I have to do like me, and Luke will kind of consult with them and lead them in directions that lead to really interesting conversations and connections with other peers in this really awesome entrepreneurship ecosystem that's happening in the springs. 

And so, I think that those projects of just being like Joshua, for example, he's creating a dash cam app. And that's so cool. So, he didn't know how to code when he entered the garage with this idea. He just had an idea, and he has it's now like on the market and that was really, really exciting to like to get there. And so that was a fun project that I was like in the backseat of but getting to witness and be a part of. And that was great. 

The kind of osmosis learning of just like here is from ideation to now actually being on the market. There's a lot I think that we can learn. I just observe also a lot of even from our faculty fellows, their research projects and a lot of it is way outside of my field. We have various like more cybersecurity things. We have a lot of like health sciences, which is not my field at all, but just listening, watching, observing, like seeing how they're bringing their projects to life. It's like wow, picking up a lot. It's really, really cool. 

Yeah. And I think we're in such a developmental phase at EPIIC right now that like all of these programs are kind of coming in and we're building them together as a team. And I think that that's really challenging in a cool way where we're focusing on like what works, what doesn't, what do we need. So, like the garage, we're like, okay, we really want to create like a creation studio. So, we have a cricket now and we have a 3D printer, and we have all of these things and we're having to come up with a curriculum that will help anybody at any stage in their business because people are coming in and they're in market making revenue. And then we have people like Josh who come in with an idea and a concept, right? So that's been a really innovative process to be like, okay, how do we create something that's streamlined for everyone, but also going to be actually helpful for everyone? Because you don't want someone to feel like, oh, I've done this two years ago. This isn't actually beneficial to me. And at the same time, someone, you don't want to give them too much that they're overwhelmed and then they don't follow through.

But we've brought a lot of cool programs or been a part of a lot of really cool programs and projects this year. So, I love to spark the Springs. It's my favorite event of the year, just because it's the biggest event of the year. And I have a lot of fun with those. Colorado Springs Rising, which is like kind of our startup week down in the Springs, which was really fun. EBV (Entrepreneurship Bootcamp for Veterans) was brought to UCCS this year and that was a cool project.

Yeah, actually for our area in our community, that seems particularly perfect. Yeah. And Larry brought that in. He had worked at another university that had it and it started at Syracuse and it's at huge universities like TCU and UCLA. If I'm speaking, right. And so, to bring it to a smaller scale school is like really, really exciting and cool. That was one that I was not as involved in. I was working more with the garage at that time, but I can't wait to see where it goes because it's one that I loved like editing the photos for and doing the post for because it looked like a wonderful time. 

Yeah, we'll definitely keep an eye on it. Yeah. And see how that comes together. Oh my gosh. I love that. Okay. I don't want to like let you quite off the hook yet. I have been really dying to know more about your screenplay though that you mentioned earlier. Like, wait though, what was it about? Please tell me more. You know, media studies here. I want to know. 

Okay. It's kind of hard to describe because the biggest point of it is a misdirect, but we had to create a screenplay for a short film. Okay. And that was what we spent the entire semester working on. And so, we worked in like a writer's room where we would be giving feedback to one another, really fun, building storyboards, building out these characters. And I just had a blast with it. I love film. My film classes have always been my favorites that I've worked on. And I love writing, but I had never tried film writing. So, it was a really, really fun project. Probably the most fun class that I've taken in my entire college experience. 

And basically, the premise of the short story or the short film was it follows this girl, Maya Conte, throughout her life. It starts with kind of these think Barbie movie, you know, like in the beginning of the Barbie movie where it's kind of like these blurry like memories. Yeah. And then like later in the movie, there's like, you realize the blurry memories are like clearer and they're kind of more zoomed out. Think that remember that. So, it starts with like a blurry memory kind of montage. And then it follows this girl Maya throughout her whole life through all these like influential points in her life. And there's all of these subtle stories that are happening in the background. But like it follows her through high school and middle school and her going off to college and then her getting a job and, you know, finding a partner and whatnot. And as this is all happening, there's all of this kind of like underlining messages and there's a narrator. And you think that the narrator is her mom because she's talking about like new opportunities and life and all of these things. And it cuts to her in the hospital. And you think, oh, she's like about to go, you know, have a child or whatever.

But it's cutting back and forth between what we now know as the narrator because there's this unveiling because this is when we see those memories kind of zoomed out and we realize it's not actually Maya.

And it ends up telling the story basically to wrap it all up. It tells the story of the receiver of an organ donor. Oh, wow. And it ends up kind of this idea. It's called Life in Pieces. And it's this idea that maybe this person who couldn't serve the life that they thought that they wanted to be better. And pieces than they were as a whole. And so, it ends up ending with all of the recipients of their organs at the end. And you never see the face of the narrator. You just hear their story. And they're not there for the beginning part before Maya has the organ. They only enter the story once Maya receives it. And there's a lighting change. I felt so good about it. I see it so visually in my mind so that I don't know if like explaining it really gets it across. But yeah, I feel like I visualized the story as well. 

You did a great job explaining it. 

The big misdirect is you think it's the mom the whole time and it ends up being this person who gave her life or gave her a second shot at life. 

Right. Oh my gosh. I love that beautiful. Any plans to you know sell that make it like I am going to Sundance?

If I had two more hours every day I would love to make only two more hours. I would like 13 more a day honestly. But I mean if there was ever the opportunity to truly create it, I would love to.

[20:04:03]

Lots of ideas that we even take like pretty far and then inevitably hit some roadblocks. But at least for me I have a whole you know folder of like on pause or like started this someday this would be amazing. But even that journey of like creating it like even up to that stage. 

I also think that that's such an important thing for me at least that like I always say I'm a jack of all trades master of none. And I think the only way you get to that, and you find those things is if you indulge in something you will not be good at. Like you don't have to be good. But I think that you should want to challenge yourself and try something new. You know like I love to play instruments. I am not great at any of the instruments that I play. I love to draw. I have really gotten into photography this year and now I'm going to play it. This year and that's been really fun. Like I love to cook. I love to dance. I've never taken a dance class but I'm always dancing when I can. And I think trying things that you're not going to be good at is important. Like I can so I'm not afraid at it, but I want to be better. 

And I think that's where innovation builds are when you're constantly wanting to get better at something whatever it may be. That's when you kind of build that innovation. So, I think a half-finished project is better than no project at all. 

Yeah. Right. We learned so much in the journey and of course you know jack of all trades master of none but still often better than a master of one. 

So, oh I love that. I've never heard that. 

I mean that's what I saw in my threads. I have not verified that's actually how it ends. But I definitely made it my head cannon. And be like yeah in most situations there's a lot of value in knowing enough about many things, of course, then specializing as needed. This is why we have researchers and you know agencies and all these departments to really drill down. 

But yeah, I think that. But they most likely didn't start with one research project. Yeah. No. They probably had more that they got really interested in. For me it's just I like the creative arts field. Right. So that's where I go to. But you probably didn't just research one thing and stick with that one thing for the rest of your life. 

Definitely. I mean even my experience the grad school is like lots of different projects before settling on like the dissertation and even now like pivoted its building. 

So, I love that. Yeah. 

Okay. So, speaking of pivoting building as you are nearing graduation, what would you like to see maybe evolve in your community or in our community.

That is such a great question. I kind of ended up in the Springs by happenstance. In fact, I actually did a lot of research on the Springs. I actually never expected to come to the Springs and I kind of had that set in my mind. I think I had a really negative expectation of the Springs before I came down here. A lot of people do actually. Yeah. And I wish that I hadn’t, but I ended up here. I signed my lease five days before I moved in with three complete strangers. Okay. Could have been really bad. Ended up being really good and I'm very grateful for it. Ended up re enrolling in school here. And it just kind of happened as it did. 

But I have come to really love the Springs and really love the community that exists here. I think it is such a big city that feels like such a small town. It's insane. I've been here for three years, and I can't go anywhere without running into someone I know. 

Yeah. Actually, though I think people underestimate that element of it. Plus, we have all of our like neighborhoods and all such different kind of feelings and vibes to them.

I think that that's what builds such a good community is that I think that because it is a big city, but it feels so small town the people who want to be around you will. And so, there are pockets of community. I wish there were more intersectionality in that. Right. Like I wish that we were combining more of these little groups of community and having more outreach. That's my hope for the Springs. 

Another huge one is I wish that we had a better public transportation down here. But that's kind of out of range. Right. Because we've built outward rather than upward and it is impossible to not have a car here. 

Yeah, we are not a walkable area at all which was definitely the biggest kind of adjustment for me. 

Where did you come from? 

Fort Collins. Much more like even though it is sprawling like a lot of the core elements are built around the college. And yeah, a lot better just transport. And I could walk like so many places in Fort Collins. I'm like the sidewalk exists the whole time and I don't have to cross like crazy streets. 

But no that's been the hardest part. I'm a city girl through and through. So, I struggle with that because it's what I yearn for. I think of all the cities that I've gone to and I'm like there's so much freedom in public transportation. I really feel so safe when there's good public transportation around. So, I do wish I do wish the Springs had a better bit. 

And also, I feel like I have a lot of my ideas actually strike when I'm walking or like just when I'm at least not driving which is good like focus on the road when you're driving. But I definitely do notice like when I like walk to campus for example, I do live close enough like a mile. Yeah, for my door to my office door and that's when I get so much like good thinking and inspiration because I kind of just get lost and just walk in talking to myself.

But when you drive it's like you know. There's music playing. There's you know like I'm an audio book person right. Like you can't really think why you're listening to an audio book. So not quite the same. Yeah. No, I could 100 percent see that being the case for sure. I love that though. Like a walk is how you get your inspiration. I don't know. It just gets my brain flowing.

But I'm a shower person. I like to shower. I feel reset and I can reapproach an issue. I think. Yeah. 

Yeah. I feel like a big piece underlying both of those approaches is sort of like other tasks that kind of allow our brain to reset and be a little bit more on autopilot and then like re-engaging. 

Yeah. Can be really helpful. 

I like solve problems in my sleep as well but that's a whole other. 

In dreams or you just wake up and they're solved?

Kind of both. Like even since I was like I will never forget like in high school you know I was in whatever calc really stuck on this homework problem. This is the first time that it like really happened to me. And so, I just you know went to bed and I remember kind of dreaming about the problem. But I woke up and was like I know how to do my homework, and I like finished it in like five minutes. And it was right. And that is something that just happened to me over and over again. 

I think that's a superpower.

[26:47]

Well before we head out. What would you like to plug for EPIIC that anybody interested in maybe getting involved or just following along should know about.

We've got some great programs here at EPIIC and we are in such a wonderful stage of movement where this is the best time to tune in. I would check out our socials. We have a Facebook and a LinkedIn for EPIIC. We have an Instagram for The Garage. And I just I think that if you're interested if you're a student on campus, I would love for you to swing by Osborne A-313. Chat with one of us. If you're interested and have a business idea that you want to actually see, come to fruition. We would love to have you as part of The Garage. And just kind of keep an eye on community wide events and our amazing partners in this ecosystem. 

Check out XI exponential impact. Check out Catalyst campus. Thrive. SBDC. All of them are amazing. And our job at EPIIC would be so minuscule if we just did not have the help of everyone else in Colorado Springs. 

Love that. So definitely check out all these exciting things happening at EPIIC.

That’s a wrap. Well, thank you so much for this conversation. Good luck as you head out into graduation. Not that I don't necessarily believe in luck so much as like you know you're prepared. You have a vision. You have goals. I have full confidence. You want to make the most of the opportunities presented. 

I hope so. Yeah, I really do. I really do. I'm excited to close this chapter. I've been one foot out for a while. So, I'm ready to like really to step into the next thing.