The 2019 Regis Innovation Challenge Finals

By: Kamil Wojciak, Staff Writer

Here at Regis University, students and staff were able to promote their businesses and business ideas, and had the opportunity to receive cash prizes to help their businesses become successful. Hosted by the Innovation Center and the Anderson College of Business, the 2019 Regis Innovation Challenge Finals took place in the Mountain View Room of Claver Hall on April 12th, 7:00 PM to around 9:35 PM. This final competition had nine finalists pitching their business ideas for the prizes of $1,000, $5,000, and $10,000, to help start their business. In the words of Dr. Ken Sagendorf, the director of the Innovation Center, this competition is meant to help “solve our world’s problems, and make it better.”

These nine competitors all presented at the event, in this chronological order:

1. MyHomeFix: an augmented-reality and educational app with the purpose of helping to do home repairs, using tutorials and step-by-step guides.

2. Invictus Project: a mental health procedure focused on traumatic brain injuries, PTSD, depression, and more; the Invictus Project also brings a more scientific approach to mental treatment with hormone replacement, ketamine infusion, high oxygen hyperbaric therapy, and more.

3. Instream Water: a highly convenient and affordable water refill station, helping remove plastic waste by removing the need of plastic water bottles.

4. Brand$tanding: a card game where you pitch business ideas, also serving the purpose of educating people.

5. Rock-n-Rides: a transportation service that goes to the Red Rocks Amphitheatre from the Denver area and vice-versa.

6. The Nest: an empowering spiritual movement by the use of workshops and retreats.

7. A To Z Logic: a service specializing in enterprise cyber security, intended for mid-size companies to households.

8. PinQuest Golf: a golf training app meant to improve the short game, while being fun and competitive.

9. CampCrate: a service that allows people to rent a box of camping equipment, and receive planning details for specific trips/adventures.

For the competition, each team had five minutes to pitch their business idea to the audience and judges. Immediately after pitching their ideas, the judges had five minutes to ask questions on the business idea. Even though the judges contributed to most of the competitors’ scores (80% of the final score), the audience was actually able to vote on the competitors themselves (20% of the final score). For the audience to vote, all they had to do was go onto a specific website, and enter the percent of favorability of each presenter; also, the total percent of favorability had to equal 100%.

With all the voting and scoring provided by the judges and audience, they were able to announce the competitors that will receive the cash prizes. The three competitors announced were MyHomeFix, Invictus, and CampCrate. All three competitors on the stage waited to hear what prize they were going to get. Then, they announced the prizes to each of the competitors. The competitor that received the $1,000 prize was Invictus, the competitor that received the $5,000 prize was MyHomeFix, and last but not least, CampCrate received the $10,000 prize.

While the competitors and some audience members may have seen the event as serious, it was highly educational and entertaining to see the innovative concepts displayed on that stage that night. If you have missed this event, I highly recommend you go to the final event of the 2020 Innovation Challenge on April 17th, 2020!

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