Second Annual Innovation Center Challenge

Bailey Gent, Student Director of Innovation Center, and Paul Hunter, CEO of Repurpose and winner of last year’s challenge //Frances Meng-Frecker

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

Innovation Challenge comes to a close this week

By: Alyssa Gomez, Staff Reporter

What is the Innovation Challenge? Well, it is the only student-run business competition in the Front Range! Regis University students were welcomed by the Innovation Center to bring new and fresh business ideas in hopes of starting their business this summer. Through this competition, the Innovation Center hopes to raise support for student business ideas and gain sponsorship to really amp up the competition of this event in the future. The Innovation Center also hopes for the start-up companies to reinvest in Regis’ business education program. This competition gives anyone affiliated with Regis, a platform to present and network their ideas.

This inaugural year, the Innovation Challenge has 9 competing teams with a vast array of fresh ideas! Who all hope to win one of the three cash prizes at the final event taking place on April 20that 5:30 pm in the Mountain View Room in Claver Hall. The three winners will be awarded prizes of $10,000, $5,000, $1,000 and a workplace in the Innovation Center that comes fully equipped with everything they need get the businesses up and running.

Why should Regis students care? Well, you get to vote for the winner! 20% of the competitor’s overall score will be determined by you, the audience member. Plus, you get to talk to attending alumni and network for yourself. Come to the final event early, 5:30 p.m., to hear the incredible headline speaker, Vic Ahmed, founder and CEO of the Innovation Pavilion and hear his amazing speech on “How to Incubate a Good Idea.” Come out and support fellow Regis students and cast your vote for the winner! 

You can RSVP for this event by going to this link: http://www.cvent.com/events/2018-alumni-matrix-meetup/event-summary-661b3be2c73743629f72e1ee1c680624.aspx 

Regis Innovation Center offers networking platform for interested students

(Photo: Regis University)

By: Marley Weaver-Gabel & Ethan Lockshin

At the Innovation Challenge launch party on October 23, many students attended to get more information about the challenge. In total, about 80 students with unique, creative ideas expressed an interest in participating in the year-long project. With so many students interested, they will all be looking for teams and mentors to get their project off the ground.

Ethan shared that many students who expressed interest didn’t know how to go about finding a team or a mentor. With quick thinking, the Innovation Challenge team found the perfect networking solution to connect innovators with interested team members and mentors.

Lockshin comments, “You spoke. We acted. Regis University invested in StartupTree and the platform is live!”

StartupTree provides the easiest way to manage, track, and support founders and startups in your network. StartupTree is used by schools such as University of Colorado Boulder, Virginia Tech, Michigan State University and is a proven solution to effectively collect data and metrics surrounding your program.

Within StartupTree, you can create your own profile and add all of your details. The more detailed you make your profile, the better you will be able to find people that are a good match for your team! A detailed profile is the best way to make solid connections with like-minded innovators.

Any questions please contact Ethan Lockshin at ELockshin@regis.edu 

https://regis.startuptree.co 

Humans of Regis: Ken Sagendorf, Ph.D.

(Photo: Emily Schneider)

By: Samantha Jewell, Social Media Editor

What brought you to Regis University?

I came here five years ago to start our teaching and learning center.  I had been invited to Regis’ campus before that to give a couple of talks before I came here I had taught at the Air Force Academy, and that is a mission-based institution, and this is a mission-based institution. Part of my desire to come here was that mission. I have worked at a lot of different institutions and Regis has the most potential out of all those institutions. The Air Force Academy is always going to be the same Air Force Academy, so the clarity of ‘Men and Women for Others’, just makes Regis feel like a world-changing institution.

Are you teaching and classes at the moment?

I have taught for years in the integrative core in Regis College and I have also taught in Exercise Science in the Physical Therapy School and now I teach in our MBA program. I taught Issues in International Business this fall and I taught Innovation in Business last fall.

Are you teaching any classes in the Spring?

One of the things we are trying to do in the Innovation Center is to start and run student businesses. My goal for this year is to start and run 4 of them. This conversation originally began with asking the administration to see if the business school could take over and run Walker’s Pub as a business laboratory. Our management students in the MBA can manage it, our HR students could figure out how to get people to work there and with the rotating student body keep students working with the same goal of service. Our marketing students can figure out how to actually fill it. Our accounting students can do the books. There are all kinds of stuff that we can figure out from a business school perspective.  So, running Walker’s Pub is one of those things that I am setting out to try and get permission from the institution to do and so I may run a class in the spring which will get a group of interested students to write the business plan to present to the administration and say we think this can actually work.

How did you get the idea for the Innovation Center?

The Innovation Center is a year old so I started last August 16th, 2016 and the Business Dean asked if I would be interested in this and I told him that I did not have the background. He answered with, “you ran a one person teaching and learning center for the whole university and despite having little support you are getting all the stuff done and that is what I am looking for, someone who can get stuff done”. It was something that I had to do a lot of thinking about it, but then said, okay let’s do this! In October, I said to the Dean I want a design studio to bring design thinking to bring design thinking to the Business School. I wanted people to be able to write all over the walls. You can lay on the floor and write on the walls from the floor level, you can climb on the stools and write up to the ceiling it is all erasable, everything is on wheels so that you can move. We had the renderings drawn in October, started talking to donors in November, and we got a million-dollar pledge on January 6th and we were built by April. It was all about defining Innovation. The definition of innovation is because we have been tasked to be a different kind of Jesuit business school because there are other really good business schools in the state of Colorado but what is the definition of a Jesuit business school. With that mission of Men and Women in Service of Others, we want to help our business students be stewards of society with the goal of improving the quality of life on Earth. That is Earth. That is ultimately what brought me to Regis if you are going to improve the quality of Earth, why not have business help!

What events does the Innovation Center have planned?

We have the Innovation Challenge, and that is a business challenge where three winners will get a 10,000 5,000 and a 1,000 dollar prize. This is to help students say that Regis is about entrepreneurship. It is about taking some chances and getting out in the world and that we want to invest in the world. We are kicking off the Alumni Matrix where we get a panel of our successful alumni and the Denver Leaders Network which is a group of business owners and leaders that are alumni of Regis that got together to create this network to connect with our students to teach them how to network.

Regis Innovation Challenge gears up for launch

(Photo: Emily Schneider)

By: Samantha Jewell, Social Media Editor

               The Innovation Center, created by the Regis University College of Business and Economics, is a headquarters for students to design critical, creative and systemic solutions for our curriculum. Ethan Lockshin is the Innovation Center Intern and he told the Highlander, “We want to make it very clear that you do not have to be a business student or a computer science student to use the Innovation Center. If you are a student that has a business idea or you want to learn something like design thinking, you can come to us and we have the resources to help get your idea rolling.”

               The Innovation Center was created to so students would have a place to make their ideas become a reality. Lockshin said, “There are plenty of students that are walking the grounds of Regis University that have business ideas but they haven’t acted on them because there have not been readily accessible resources for them.” The Innovation Center is that answer.

               Lockshin wants to leave Regis University better than he found it and that is why he has been involved in creating the inaugural Innovation Challenge.

               “If you are a student and you have an idea, this year-long lead up is a great opportunity to build teams and connect with potential investors. You can use this Innovation Challenge as a vehicle to get your idea started.”

               If you would like to learn more about the Innovation Challenge please visit https://www.regisinnovationchallenge.com/ and please join them for their launch party at 6:00 pm Oct. 23, in the Innovation Center at Regis University.

Twitter: @RegisInnovation
Instagram: @RegisInnovation
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/RegisInnovation/