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An inventive student venture that would get impaired drivers home safely, with their vehicles, from a night out on the town has captured top honors in Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology’s first Rocket Pitch entrepreneurship competition, organized by the college’s Engenius Solutions student enterprise.
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Student Entrepreneurs: Rocket Pitch Competition Judge Daniel J. Moore, associate dean of faculty at Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology, congratulates the three top place finishers among 19 teams that competed in the Engenius Solutions student entrepreneurship challenge. |
Receiving $2,000 in venture capital was a business idea advocated by Sam Hawkins, a senior mechanical engineering major from Ozark, Mo., that would have employees available with collapsible bicycles to ride to a place where a person feels too impaired to drive home safely, while also not wanting to leave a vehicle behind. The bicycle would be folded and placed in the person’s vehicle while the service provider drives the impaired person home. Once returned safely, the bicycle would be unfolded again and rode back to the business’ office.
Earning second place ($1,000) was Chris Achard, a senior computer engineering major from Troy, Mich., for a "Motion Mouse" device that could aid persons with wrist problems through operation with simple hand movements in the air.
Ryan Westlund, a junior mechanical engineering major from Vienna, Va., was third ($500) for a blender-mounted drink cooling device called “Blender Buddy.”
A total of 19 teams and 21 contestants made three-minute business proposals to a team of judges that included Bill Kline, head of Rose-Hulman’s Department of Engineering Management, associate dean for professional experiences and director of Rose-Hulman Ventures; Daniel J. Moore, associate dean of faculty and professor of electrical and computer engineering; and Michael Shepard, former Engenius Solutions director and Rose-Hulman alumnus who now works for Heron Capital, an Indianapolis-based venture capital fund.
This year’s Rocket Pitch competition was so successful that Engenius Solutions is planning similar challenges during the 2008-09 academic year to increase interest in student entrepreneurship, according to Engenius Solutions Director Benjamin Cook, a sophomore electrical engineering major from Algonquin, Ill.
Supported by the Lilly Endowment Inc., Engenius Solutions is a non-profit division of Rose-Hulman that strives to provide an environment for entrepreneurial and project experiences that enable students to learn about the facets of technical innovation. The student-operated educational venture allocates financial, intellectual and technological resources in an effort to cultivate entrepreneurial activity throughout Indiana. Student teams and faculty develop inventor's ideas with market and consumer needs in mind.
More information about Engenius Solutions can be found at www.engenius.org or contacting Benjamin.Cook@rose-hulman.edu.
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