SEMO students pitch innovative ideas as part of challenge

A wise politician once said something to the effect: Sometimes you win, sometimes you get experience. The implication being even a loss can have its benefits in the form of experience.

The same maxim applies to business. �Fail fast, fail cheaply.� It�s practical advice and something the winners of the Southeast Innovation Challenge learned with their winning entry into this year�s competition.

On Wednesday afternoon, a group of students, faculty and staff gathered in Academic auditorium for Southeast Missouri State University�s third annual Innovation Challenge, which was held during Global Entrepreneurship Week.

Three teams of students made their pitches on ways to improve the student experience at Catapult Creative House, a creative space on Broadway designed to give students the chance to put their education into practice.

The three ideas: �Rooftop Community Garden,� with space that could be rented on top of Catapult; �Spread Awareness and Create Organization,� which focused on organization and color coding the space to point students of certain majors to locations, services and products of similar interests; and the people�s choice and overall winning entry, �Hackapult,� a takeoff from Google�s Hackathon, which would bring students to the space to address real-world problems faced by local businesses.

Catapult operations manager Leah Powers said the competition has always been about challenging students to be innovative and creative, but the twist this year was focusing each group around the common theme of Catapult. She said there were a number of strong pitches out of the 16 submitted, and it was close in deciding the top three to present.

�They came up with really interesting ideas,� Powers said, �some of which, as the judges were emailing me back their responses, said, �Hey, even if they�re not in the top three, we want to go ahead and take a look at this and really implement it.��

The idea is for full-time students to work across disciplines and pitch a program, initiative or service that could enhance the Catapult student experience. Each idea, per the criteria, should be impactful, innovative and feasible.

The winning team, �Hackapult,� was pitched by Katrien Gille and Lisa Goette. Gille, from Belgium, is working on her master�s in business administration and Goette is at Southeast for one semester as part of her master�s in international business management from a university in Germany. Each one has a hunger for competition and took a different approach to their presentation. To begin, they asked the audience who enjoyed playing games. Most hands went up. They followed up by asking whether winning was important when they played. Somewhat rhetorical, the same people responded.

�Hackapult,� they explained, would build upon this desire of competition and gamification to bring students together at Catapult for the purpose of solving a business challenge. It�s a smart idea, though not necessarily a fix-all solution for businesses. Still, it would give students real-world experience as they earn their degrees and pursue careers.

Both ladies shared with me they do not plan to start their own company after graduation. Instead, they would like to join a large international company. More intrapreneurship than entrepreneurship, which is just as important.

They said the genesis of the idea came after considering several others, but, as Gille said, �... there was something missing, or they were too small.�

Both young ladies won more than a cash prize in the competition. They�ve added to their education portfolio, both on paper and presentation. Their advice to peers is to take a chance and participate.

�[Students should] not be afraid of anything or of standing on the stage presenting. Just doing it, having a good idea. Working together is fun. And, at the end, getting incentives, being with people, meeting the people is a very fun thing. I can only recommend this event,� Goette said.

Gille added, �We do really feel that once you participate more, it�s not just about winning, it�s about getting experience. And, like I said, putting yourself out there and not being afraid to fail, that�s just the biggest thing that I think we can give to other students. It�s hard and it�s scary, but you never know what might come out of it.�

It�s good advice, whether a college student or working professional thinking about putting themselves out there with a new idea. It�s this type of innovation that benefits communities, states and the nation. Hats off to the university for providing this opportunity for students to learn this important lesson. Here�s hoping the Innovation Challenge grows next year.

Lucas Presson is assistant publisher of the Southeast Missourian.