Feb 22 2011
The Innovation Challenge is a competition that encourages students to utilize their inventive skills and imagination to start business ventures that will provide feasible solutions for localized global problems. At a recent competition, student teams won around $48,000 for submitting innovative solutions.
According to Charlie Lewis, the vice president of the Venture Development unit of the Venture Catalyst, the initiative started by the ASU helps students to flesh out their ideas into concrete proposals for potential businesses they can start when they graduate from college. The proposal is then placed before a panel of businessmen and industrialists who put it through a rigorous round of review and assessment. Other proposals this year were those to convert shipping containers into gynecological clinics abroad, to creating a sensing device that would prevent sudden infant mortality, from multi-layer to a one-man business venture.
In previous years, the winning amounts ranged from $2000 to $5000, but on recommendation of the judges, these were increased this year to range from $500 to $10,000. Around 150 teams participated in the contest this year. Of these, 30 teams were short listed for the final round, depending on the feasibility and novelty of ideals, budget layout, and the overall manner in which it would impact society. The OneShot team won $10,000 for proposing that will vaccinate one person in Africa for meningitis for every US student who was given a vaccine. Daylight Solutions intends to use coal as an option to power cell phone batteries.
Source: http://www.asu.edu/