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Husky Innovate Workshops and Pitch Competitions

Published October 2, 2018

The Innovation Center for Entrepreneurship at Michigan Tech, a collaboration between the Pavlis Honors College and the School of Business and Economics, announces a new series of workshops and events for students called Husky Innovate. Husky Innovate is a succession of workshops and competitions guiding students through key phases of innovation and business development, while emphasizing evidence-based strategies for success.

Students are encouraged to participate in any/all events of their choosing, whether they’re interested in learning more about entrepreneurship and innovation to distinguish their résumé, or they want to start their own business and build knowledge, expertise, and confidence through participation.

Students who challenge themselves to pitch their idea at a national, state, or regional competition will find the Husky Innovate track provides a foundation for achieving their goals. The workshops and events emphasize experiential learning and provide the opportunity to get valuable feedback from peers and mentors.

The Idea Pitch Competition will be held from 7 to 9 p.m. Wednesday, Oct. 17 in M&M U113. During the two-minute pitch competition, students will share their favorite innovative and disruptive idea in an interactive community setting. Cash prizes will be awarded. Students should register early; participation is limited to the first 30 registrants.

See more events and upcoming workshops at mtu.edu/husky-innovate.

Project Management Institute Competition

Published April 12, 2018

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Each year Michigan Tech’s OSM4200 Advanced Project Management course competes in the West Michigan Chapter of the Project Management Institute (PMI) competition in Grand Rapids Michigan. This year, two Michigan Tech teams competed: “Lettuce Taco ’bout Food Waste” and “Squash the Waste”.

This year’s project plan was to design, create and package an educational program that draws current practical information from the national, state, and municipal levels to show what people can do to reduce food waste. Michigan Tech’s “Squash the Waste” placed 3rd out of 8 teams in THE Project 2018 project management plan competition on Monday, April 9. The team’s mentors were Ginger Connin and Thomas Conquest. Roger Woods, Senior Lecturer was the team’s Project Champion and Faculty Advisor. The team members were:

John Carey: undergraduate student – engineering management major

Shelbie Koenitzer: undergraduate student – management major with a concentration in entrepreneurship

Emma LeFleur: undergraduate student – engineer management major

Austin Riipli: undergraduate student – engineering management major

Nihar Brahmbhatt: graduate student in electrical engineering

Shawn Badanjek, Engineering Management & MIS, Wins Big at Lear Open Innovation Challenge with other Michigan Tech Students

Published February 26, 2018

By Jodie Filpus

By Jennifer Donovan
Original Link

Five Michigan Tech students competed in the Lear Open Innovation Challenge 2018, and four brought home awards.

Michigan Technological University students Shawn Badanjek, Mayank Bagaria, Anurag Kamal, Cameron Philo and Arvind Ravindran completed this year’s challenge, and Badanjek [student in the School of Business and Economics] was a member of the team that won the grand prize.

Lear Corporation, based in Detroit, is a leading automotive supplier that hosts the annual challenge to build connections with the state’s universities and tap new sources of innovative ideas.

“Detroit is the birthplace of the automobile, and, leveraging this proud legacy and manufacturing expertise, its industries are poised to be ground zero for the development of tomorrow’s mobility solutions,” the Lear Open Innovation Challenge website explains.

The challenge is conducted by the Innovatrium, a consulting firm founded to help organizations build the internal capacity to innovate and grow.

This year’s Lear Challenge had 57 participants from six universities: Michigan Tech, Michigan State University, Wayne State University, the University of Michigan-Ann Arbor, the University of Michigan-Dearborn and the University of Detroit-Mercy.

The Lear Open Innovation Challenge presents a problem to interdisciplinary teams of university students. This year, the challenge involved increasing vehicle occupant safety. Two weeks later, the teams meet in Detroit to present their solutions.

The competition is designed to teach an innovative mindset, prepare students to create ideas for the future of mobility and vehicle connectivity, work with innovation coaches and Lear technology development experts and learn how to develop solutions that advance technology and manufacturing. While in Detroit, the student teams get a tour of Lear’s headquarters and a chance to network with top companies in the Detroit area and faculty from Michigan Tech, Michigan State, Wayne State, the University of Michigan-Ann Arbor and University of Michigan-Dearborn.

Grand Prize Winner

Five Michigan Tech students completed the challenge and four received awards. One, Shawn Badanjek, was a member of the team that won the Grand Prize. A senior in engineering management [and management information systems], he will receive an internship with Lear for the summer, where he will work with his team to develop a prototype of their idea. He will also receive $250 cash prize, a Haworth Fern chair (customized personally for him) and a set of Detroit Tigers tickets.

Lear Open Innovation Challenge grand-prize-winning team: (from left) Michigan Tech student **Shawn Badanjek**, Janelle Newman, Shivam Bajaj, Nicole Goldi and Adrian Maloy.

Badanjek has high praise for the competition mentors. “I believe the guidance and mentoring I received from these people was priceless,” he says. “I learned more about high-level team building and interaction in two weeks than in any semester-long class I have ever taken. This is something you learn that will be with you and help you navigate team interactions for life.”

Two other students, Cameron Philo—a Pavlis Honors College student—and Mayank Bagaria, were on a team that won an award for the most innovative idea. They will each receive a $250 cash prize.

“We approached the problem from a very different perspective, not as a conventional mechanical engineer would design, but as a biomedical engineer would design,” says Bagaria, a graduate student in mechanical engineering. “Working on the team was an awesome experience; diverse universities with people from different majors provided a very different perspective to the solution. The whole experience made me realize my strength and areas I need to work on. Michigan Tech helped us throughout the process. It would not have been possible to go and compete in Detroit without Michigan Tech.”

Michigan Technological University is a public research university, home to more than 7,000 students from 60 countries around the world. Founded in 1885, the University offers more than 120 undergraduate and graduate degree programs in science and technology, engineering, forestry, business and economics, health professions, humanities, mathematics, and social sciences. Our beautiful campus in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula overlooks the Keweenaw Waterway and is just a few miles from Lake Superior.

Elevator Pitch Competition Results

Published October 31, 2016

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On Thursday, October 6th the School of Business and Economics, Smart Zone, Michigan Economic Development Program and Michigan Tech Center for Social Innovation hosted the annual Bob Mark Elevator Pitch Competition. In addition to cash prizes, tickets to the Silicon Valley Experience were also awarded to ten of the participants. Congratulations to all of our winners:

1st Prize – Emmet Eurich, VaccuShot

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Emmet is a second year chemical engineer at Michigan Tech from Midland, Michigan.

Vacuu-Shot is a business whose sole purpose is to make the archery world a safer and better place for all of those who are and will be archers, without the risk of injury. Vacuu-Shot is based around his design, which replaces the high tension limbs and cables, as well as all of the complex moving parts found in compound bows that cause these injuries, with a vacuum piston system, lever-action limb system, and cast non-flexible frame. Vacuu-Shot plans on having their first bow line, called The Rochmaninoff, at the ATA Trade Show in Indianapolis by January of 2017.

2nd Prize – Tommy Stuart, Delving Deeply

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Tommy grew up in Rochester, Michigan before moving to New Jersey, Kentucky, Iowa and back to Michigan. He has had a variety of experiences before landing himself here as a part time student taking courses in information technology here at Michigan Tech.

Delving Deeply is a project Tommy is working on with his team in the Husky Game Development enterprise program. They are called Team 13, or “Pizza Lab” and are made up of Tommy, James Turkette, Trevor Hamilton, and Scott Murphy. Their game is a single player top down action adventure, similar to the older 2D Legend of Zelda games. By Decemeber they are hoping to have at least four eonnected dungeon rooms, and a puzzle or two for the player to solve while battling enemies and moving between rooms. Their full game will be significantly larger and hpoe to release it by May 2017.

3rd Prize & Audience Favorite – Parth Bhatt & Dhavan Sharma, The Indian Restaurant

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Parth and Dhavan are both graduate students at Michigan Tech from Gujarat State in India. Parth is studying applied ecology and geographic information sience and Dhavan is in the biomedical engineering program.

After moving to Michigan Tech in August 2016, the two discovered there was not an Indian Restaurant in the area. They found that Michigan Tech has a large community of Indian, Chinese, Nigerian and American students and professors who love Indian food but have no where to go to eat it. Both have experience working in the food industry in India and want to serve the Keewenaw community with tasty and healthy Indian cuisine.

Best Technology – Kyle Ludwig, Tru

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Kyle is a fourth year transfer student studying computer engineering from Traverse City, Michigan.

Tru was an idea he had to help empower people to adopt healthy lifestyles. Since last year, Tru has grown from just Kyle to a five member team in Computer Science and Computer Engineering working on design and evelopment. They are currently creating an automated nutrition plan for Android which adapts to personal goals and preferences over time, much like a Spotify playlist. It is as simple as a left or right swipe on each suggestion to plan your next meal. A weekly grocery list, recipe directions and scheduled times to prepare meals are also given. Their launch page will be up soon, likely under a new name for insider access and updates.

Best Social Innovation – Datta Sendesh, Teelax

Economics Student Returns from Washington DC

Published July 7, 2016

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Jerrid Burdue (a third year economics student) just returned from presenting his winning iOME essay in Washington DC. Faculty adviser, Dr. Emanuel Xavier-Oliveira and the Interim Dean of the School of Business and Economics, Dr. Dean Johnson accompanied Burdue on his trip. Jerrid discussed his proposal for improving the savings of millennials with Senator Stabenow, and met with Senator Peters to talk over his currently pending bill, THE COMPETES BILL. This bill would increase funding for STEM research. Burdue, Oliveira and Johnson discussed ways the School of Business and Economics could assist with the implementation of the bill. The group was also able to spend extended time with Senator Peter’s key staffers that work with retirement savings where they discussed the importance of the commercialization of this research.

While in Washington, Jerrid was also featured on a panel to discuss millennial savings patterns and habits. Other panelists included representatives from the Department of Labor, the Treasury Department, and Congressional staff from both republic and democratic parties.

Gary Peters Debbie Stabenow

Read more about Burdue, and see his essay here.

Category: Competitions