ide·ate : to form an idea

NDSU is calling its students to ideate. But taking action on those ideas can be tough. All too often, a brilliant idea is stifled by lack of resources or fear of failure. That’s why NDSU is hosting their 6^th annual Innovation Challenge: to encourage students to be innovative while also providing the resources to turn ideas into realities.

As a way to kickoff the Innovation Challenge, which lasts until February 2015, NDSU is hosting a free and public Innovation Pitch event this Thursday, on October 16. This event, which will be held at 6 p.m. at the NDSU Harry D. McGovern Alumni center, allows students the chance to present their ideas, form teams with other students who have the necessary skill sets, and network with local entrepreneurs. Attendees will vote on the top three innovative ideas that night and the winners will have the chance to receive a Nexus 7, Ipad mini, or Microsoft Surface. All students who pitch will receive a t-shirt, and everyone at the event will get plentiful amounts of (free) pizza!

But this is only the beginning. After the pitch, students and their teams will start building on their ideas, with the goal of presenting polished visual and oral presentations. Proposals will be made in November, and a visual presentation boot camp is provided in December. Those visual presentations will be judged at the end of January, and in February students go through the same process for oral presentations. Winners are announced at the awards ceremony on February 26, 2015.

It’s a great process for developing an idea in a professional way, but for a full-time students this might just sound like a lot of extra work. That’s where the incentive comes in. The total prize money for the Innovation Challenge is $20,000.

That’s a lot of money.

The money is split between the three winners, one for each category: products, services, and corn-related services. For example, the product winner of last year’s Innovation Challenge was NewCure, a project that is developing new therapeutic agent for a cancer that effects infants and children. The corn service winner was Hum-Healthy Plus, a group that developed cost-effective hummus using corn flour and lentil products produced in North Dakota. The service winner was Aqua Motion International, an organization dedicated to preventing drowning in low and middle income areas around the world – with the prize money, team leader and avid swimmer John McCartney was able to fly to Nepal and teach hundreds of kids drowning-rescue education.

Each of these teams received $5,000, with second and third place for each category also receiving $1,000 and $500 respectively. This provides, even in a small way, the financial backing for teams to get their projects up and running.

Andrew Moe, who was part of winning team Aqua Motion International last year and is now the President of the NDSU Entrepreneur club, said the goal this year is to get more non-business students involved. Entrepreneurship is something students in any major should get excited about, he said.

“Think about owning your own business, and working for yourself,” he said.

Fellow member of NDSU’s entrepreneur club Sean Kolodziej said at first he had no interest in entrepreneurship, but as he got more involved through a company project, he now finds it to be “infectious.”

“I started going to 1 Million Cups in March and after going one week I continued coming back,” he said. “I get energy from other people’s ideas, so that I myself might be able to develop something. Or at least have people around me that have the same vision, and want to create something together.”

If you’re someone who thinks they never have any good ideas, or that ideas must be huge and life-changing, take a look again at last year’s winners – a cancer-treating therapy, a swimmer with a goal to save lives, a nutritional new way to make hummus. These are not out of reach goals, and they do not all fall within the same category. Anyone and everyone has ideas. You have ideas. This is simply the chance to let those ideas nurture and grow.

Greg Tehven from Emerging Prairie has spoken about idea-making as such: think of an everyday problem you have. Does the temperature of your shower get too hot? Do your pens run out of ink too quickly? Produce not taste fresh? Office space too squished? Everyone has their own life peeves.

Now think of a solution.

Let yourself be as creative, imaginative, and crazy as you want. Because the best ideas are often the ones that seem so simple, but answer a common problem. This process is seen time and time again in success stories of people right here in our community. The team at GoodSurv developed their app for mobile surveys because online surveys were a hassle. Simply Made Apps had trouble with their employee in/out board, so they designed an app that makes it easier for everyone. Girl Develop It Fargo was formed out of the lack of hands on coding courses in the community. These are successful problem-solvers.

Of course, an idea is nothing without a solid team. This is why the Innovation Pitch is focusing on bringing teams together – if you don’t have an idea yourself, your skill set may be what another idea needs to develop and grow.

“You might be a team of engineers, but need a graphic designer,” said Nichole Strei, Vice President of NDSU Entrepreneur’s club. “I think that’s what Innovation week lacked was that there were students who wanted to do something but they didn’t have a team, but they had a set of skills that someone else could have definitely used. So I think this is a really good networking opportunity for students.

The Innovation Pitch also offers a clear ‘next step’ for those students who may have ideas, but don’t know what to do with them. In a recent article from WeAreOTA, Ryan Raguse, President of Myriad Mobile spoke about how one turns inspiration into action.

“When most people don’t know what to do, as can be the case when inspired but unsure of the next step, most people default to taking no action,” he said. “When you don’t know what to do, or when faced with uncertainty, the next best step is to default to taking action, whatever that may be. Just move the ball somewhere. Then assess the results and adjust the next action accordingly.”

Scroll through recent articles on our website, and you’ll find countless stories of people who got the ball rolling. Most recently we heard from GoodSurv, Girl Develop It, and Simply Made Apps, for example, all ideas brought to fruition by a good team and a little gumption. Go to any 1 Million Cups and you’re sure to hear many more tales of innovative ideas turned full-fledged business. They are not necessarily experienced businessmen and women either – many are are young, passionate idea-makers and problem-solvers. And their testimonies are always about the joy of the journey. No, there is no guarantee that every idea will become a huge success story.

But why not give it a shot?

 

Register here.