Academics

IST IdeaMaker Challenge offers students a chance to grow entrepeneurial ideas

Fifty-three students competed in 15 teams at the 1st IST IdeaMaker semi-finals held April 1, 2014. The students represented 9 different colleges/schools at Penn State including: Eberly College of Science, College of Engineering, College of Communications, College of Liberal Arts, Smeal College of Business, College of Information Sciences and Technology, College of Health and Human Development, College of Agricultural Sciences and the School of International Affairs. Credit: Penn StateCreative Commons

Penn State’s College of Information Sciences and Technology (IST) will once again host its IdeaMaker Challenge to showcase innovation and entrepreneurship and offer students the opportunity to work collaboratively on a problem that leverages information technology as a key component of the solution.

The competition asks teams to identify a problem, conceptualize a solution and then build a viable business model for launching a start-up business, said Lee Erickson, faculty adviser for the challenge and lecturer in the College of IST.

“The objective of the challenge is to give undergraduates a platform from which to share and grow their ideas, as well as to receive feedback from industry experts,” said Erickson. 

Applications for this year’s challenge are currently being accepted and the challenge kicks off on March 4 with three-minute rocket pitches. Teams must identify a problem and outline its solution using only three slides in three minutes. Six teams will be selected to advance to the second round where they work with an industry mentor to refine their pitches for the finals to be held on April 15 as part of IST Start-up Week.

“The best part [of the competition] was the amazing mentor I had,” said Luke Metaxas, a sophomore majoring in IST and Supply Chain & Information Systems, and semi-finalist in last year’s challenge. “Working with him expanded my knowledge about entrepreneurship significantly; I can't recommend the challenge enough for students who want to start a business and learn about entrepreneurship.”

In addition to developing industry expertise in idea development, collaboration and potential seed funding, the challenge winners have the opportunity to win great prizes. First place teammates will travel to the Silicon Valley to network with a start-up company, the second place team will travel to the Washington DC area to work with an incubator or innovation center and third place winners will each receive a Jawbone Jambox wireless speaker.   

For students who are interested in participating in this year’s competition but don’t have a team, individuals can reach out to other competitors online at the “Find a Team Forum” on the IdeaMaker website. The forum allows interested students from colleges across the University to join a team that needs additional members. To qualify, team members must be in good academic standing and represent at least two different colleges. Working with others from a cross section of the university is, after all, one of the most important factors of the challenge.

“It was great to work with students outside my college,” said William Clair Ferguson, an IST major and 2014 semi-finalist. “No one person's thought process was the same and the different perspectives provided great insight to the development of our idea.”

Team applications for the IdeaMaker Challenge will be accepted until midnight on Feb. 22, and can be downloaded at http://bit.ly/ideamakers.

Last Updated February 12, 2015