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Students interested in finding innovative solutions to problems they are passionate about are being offered the chance to do so through a new competition by the UAB Innovation Lab.
The Blazer Innovation Challenge, hosted by the Innovation Lab in the Collat School of Business and sponsored by IBERIABANK, offers students the chance to win up to $5,000 in prize money as well as the opportunity to obtain resources and mentoring from the Innovation Lab.
“The whole purpose of the innovations challenge is really to do two things. One is to raise the awareness of opportunities in innovation and entrepreneurship on campus,” said Joel Dobbs, entrepreneur-in-residence for the Innovation Lab. “The second thing is to give students the opportunity to take ideas that they may have and give them the resources in terms of both money and coaching and assistance to try to turn those into something that’s real and tangible.”
Working individually or as part of a team, students can submit an application form along with a one-minute video explaining the problem they seek to address, why that issue is important and how they might go about addressing the problem. Entrants must intend to continue pursing the development of their idea and how it could be implemented as a business or nonprofit organization.
“It’s not a traditional business plan competition,” Dobbs said. “The idea could be turned into a business, it could be a nonprofit or a volunteer organization that solves the problem, we don’t restrict it that way.”
The deadline for the initial submission is Oct. 19. After that, five finalists will be selected and will receive coaching and workshop training to help refine their ideas. They will also receive help on crafting a three-minute final video which will be due Nov. 7. On Nov. 13, finalists will show their final video to a panel of outside experts recruited by the Innovation Lab and will participate in a 15-20 minute Q&A session.
The first place prize is $5,000, while second place is $2,500 and third is $1,000. Winners will receive half the prize money at the start of the spring semester and agree to work in the Innovation Lab on implementing their ideas. The winners will submit two progress reports throughout the spring semester, as well as present their progress to contest sponsors in April.
Students will also apply to present their concepts at the Kauffman Foundation 1 Million Cups program sometime in the spring.
Although only a few entries have been submitted so far, Dobbs said that he would not be surprised to see submissions that attempt to tackle common issues that students face.
“I don’t really know what to expect, but I suspect that one of the things that, if the classes that we teach where we ask students to come up with problems to solve are any indicator, I would not be surprised if we don’t get a number of things that relate to issues that students face,” said Dobbs, citing issues such as parking or campus safety.
The competition is open to all UAB students who plan to be enrolled throughout the 2016-17 academic year. Submitted ideas cannot be the result of anything that UAB would have the intellectual property rights to, such as funding from grants or employment at the university.
“They really don’t need any formal business training, in fact, I would expect that we may get a lot of submissions from a lot of other [schools] other than business,” Dobbs said. “I think the only thing [you need] is some problem or opportunity that you see that you would like to spend time solving or coming up with a solution to it, regardless or whether it could be turned into a business or whether it could be turned into a nonprofit.”
Students can find out more about the competition and submit their applications at uab.edu/innovationchallenge/.
