By: Natalia Zreliak, Co-Editor-In-Chief
Yesterday the Anderson College of Business held its launch party for the 2018 Innovation Challenge. The event was in the Innovation Center on the third floor of Clarke Hall from 5:00pm-7:00p, allowing community members to come and learn more about the challenge and celebrate the launch. In attendance were also some of the returning mentors from last year’s challenge, ranging from professors to alumni along with a member of last year’s winning team, Paul Hunter from Repurpose, to offer advice to those interested in these year’s challenge.
The Innovation Center was created in 2016 with the mission to “innovate business education by bringing together students, faculty, alumni, and the community to design solutions for the curriculum and the world” according to their website. The Innovation center really wants to stress that anyone can participate in the challenge, you do not have to have a business background. The top three teams will receive $10,000, $5,000, and $1,000 along with a co-working space in the Innovation Center and the ability to utilize the Alumni Matrix. This year they will also be offering a prize to anyone who has a brand new idea but is in the beginning stages of developing it.
Each team must have at least one student but the Innovation Challenge is open to all students, faculty and staff. The challenge itself is to build an innovative business that is desirable, feasible, and viable. Questions that will be asked of the ideas include: Does the world need it? Can it be done with the tools the groups have and are asking for? Lastly, will people actually pay for it? The teams will be judged on these three criteria along with their presentation.
“This is a business competition, we use the pitches as a metric to evaluate but the reality is this is about you starting and running a business that becomes a part of the community. This is where the stewardship mission comes into play” said Ken Sagendorf, Ph.D., a professor in the College of Business and Economics at Regis. Eighty percent of the judging is done by the panel of judges selected from areas all across the business sector and 20% of the judging is done by those in attendance of the final pitches.
“I am excited about the innovation challenge to see the process for the different teams and the ways that they develop over the year of mentoring, learning, and growing. I’m really just excited for them to take something and build on their education in a way that will be really feasible and tangible going forward after graduation,” said Bailey Gent, a Senior at Regis and this years Student Co-Director for the Innovation Challenge.
Important dates coming up:
Monday, November 12: Open House in the Innovation Incubator from 5:00-7:00 pm
Monday, November 26: Open House in the Innovation Incubator from 5:00-7:00 pm
Monday, December 10 through Wednesday, December 12: Semi-Final Pitches, 15 minute slots between 6:00-8:00pm.
To learn more about the Innovation challenge you can contact them on their website and join their mailing list or follow them on Twitter and Instagram @RegisInnovation or on Facebook as RegisInnovation. Or email them at innovation@regis.edu or contact the co-directors Bailey Gent at bgent@regis.edu and Zach Pearson at zpearson@regis.edu.
TAGS: Regis, Regis University, Anderson College of Business, Innovation Center, Innovation Challenge, 2018 Innovation Challenge, Alumni Matrix, Ken Sagendorf, College of Business and Economics, Bailey Gent, Jesuit, Business, Natalia Zreliak