The Burton D. Morgan Center for Integrated Entrepreneurship at Hiram College annually hosts a series of idea competitions that give students the opportunity to pitch their best ideas. Each fall, the College hosts ideablitz!, an idea generation and development event in which contestants develop an enterprise idea through the creation of a written concept statement. During the spring semester, students examine the feasibility of their concept through the ideabuild! competition.
This year, nine innovative concepts were pitched by 30 students from across the College to a panel of outside judges consisting of entrepreneurs and business owners. Each student or group had five minutes to present, followed by two minutes of Q&A. Ideas were judged based on the concept of a product or service, value proposition, industry and market, costs and revenues, and quality of presentation.
Winners of ideabuild! 2021 include:
First Place: Cancer Cure Wigs by Kaela McMullin
Cancer Cure Wigs are designed to help cancer patients grow their hair during chemotherapy treatments. Underneath the wig is a gel-like cap that releases small amounts of two FDA-approved drugs that “wake up” hair follicles.
Second Place: The Book Chat by Isiah Taborn, Dylan McDaniel, Allen Stevens, and Alainna Conroy
The Book Chat is an app that allows students and book readers to buy, sell, and trade books at affordable and negotiable prices.
Third Place: The Transfer Battery Phone Case by Camdyn Miller, Brennan Cain, Skyler Huda, and Daniel Wimsett
The Transfer Battery Phone Case is a universal phone case that can fit any make and model phone and can transfer the power between two devices touching together.
As in previous years, the event was made possible through a grant from the Burton D. Morgan Foundation.
