Innovation and Entrepreneurship Committee

Innovation and Entrepreneurship Committee
Report by Mark Cluff, Committee Chair

The Innovation Committee wishes to thank Grant Beckmann for the service he rendered while he was committee chair and also expresses thanks to Martin Frey for outstanding work with the Student Innovator of the Year (SIOY) competition in 2011.

We also want to welcome Mark Cluff as the new committee chair and Dr. Alan Boardman as a new faculty member with responsibility for the Engineering and Technology Startup (ETS) club. ETS is the feed for many of the products in the SIOY competition.

We are excited about the 2012 Student Innovator of the Year competition. We met as a committee in December and reviewed the past activities of SIOY and looked at directions for the future. We roughed out a schedule for 2012 and discussed the finances that will be required to run the SIOY competition. The committee recommended that more time be spent preparing the judges in order to place more emphasis on product engineering, innovation and marketability. We believe these simple improvements will raise the level of the competition. It will also provide greater visibility and credibility for the competitors and the competition. This may result in a few less entries but it will also generate higher quality products with a greater chance for success in the business plan competition and other contests.