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Pitching Innovation

Kettering makes progress on its entrepreneurship goals

By Patricia Mroczek

Innovation Challenge
Sixteen innovative ideas were presented and hundreds voted on videos during the 2009 Innovation Challenge at Kettering University in March.

Student Alex Dudick won the top prize of $1,000. His idea and video featured a concept for a college student registry called SweetPackageDude.com. “It’s like a bridal registry for students to direct friends and family members to if they are interested in sending supplies, food or gifts that the student indicates is needed or desired,” said Dudick, a fourth year Mechanical Engineering student from South Lyon, Mich.

The Innovation Challenge has two phases – innovation and commercialization, said Art DeMonte, Kettering’s Professor of Entrepreneurship. “Each phase is in separate teaching terms,” he explained. In the Commercialization Phase, students will provide more details on how to build their idea into a commercial opportunity and a video pitch, DeMonte said. They will also submit a five-page executive summary that covers marketing and financial projections.

“We just love the Web 2.0 aspect of this,” DeMonte explained. “The YouTube pitch and student voting made this a fun way to experiment with entrepreneurship and get students thinking about how they can innovate, create and build a product or company. Innovative thinking will make our graduates a very sought after commodity.”

Pullout Quote
Two runner-up innovation pitches won $500 each. Uttam Dharanappa, an MBA student from Australia, pitched a free wireless service based on sponsored advertising—called ZurfTurf. Eric Binnendyk, a fourth year Mechanical Engineering student from Zeeland, Mich., pitched a free GPS navigation unit for autos – Nada Navigation – which would highlight sponsored locations in real time.

Honorable mentions went to the FlexBooks team of Andrew Young and Mathieu Setliff, and Presence Sensing Technology in Automation Safety team of Chandramouli Venkatesan and Kevin LeCureux.

President Stan Liberty and Provost Michael Harris awarded the three top awards in March during an event in the University’s Great Court of the Campus Center. For more information, contact Art DeMonte at ademonte@kettering.edu or Sunny Park at spark@kettering.edu.

SweetPackageDude Video
ZurfTurf VideoNada Navigation Video

See videos on all the innovation pitches on YouTube.com at www.kettering.edu/orgs/kuinnovation/.

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