Students from the University of Puget Sound, University of Washington, Tacoma and Pacific Lutheran University gathered together in the Rotunda on Saturday, Nov. 3 for Puget Sound’s annual entrepreneurial test of the mind. “Innovate! Create!” is a collaborative entrepreneurship competition in which groups of students are given the same problem to solve and three hours to create an inventive approach to correcting it.
“Innovate! Create!” is sponsored by Tacoma Entrepreneur Network (TEN): College Edition with the direction of Associate Professor from the School of Business and Leadership Lynnette Claire. Claire created TEN with the help of her social entrepreneur students in the fall of 2011. Professor Claire said it started as a rough idea beginning all the way in 2010 because her mission was “to use entrepreneurship as a way to help build communities.”
Over time her idea was crafted into a feasible combination of resources that allowed TEN to operate on a community level within the college network of Tacoma. TEN launched November of last year with its first event: “Innovate! Create!”
This year’s problem to tackle was obesity. The students were divided into three groups and asked to begin working on developing a solution of any kind that would then be judged before a panel of seasoned professionals from the community: Josh Dunn, founder of Premier Media Group; Karlan Jessen, founder of PlayBack Sports and Petra Perkins, the founder of 444 Journeys.
The teams’ solutions were critiqued on the level of innovation, feasibility, beneficial usage and figurative worth.
The winning team was A Helping Hand for their concept of developing a healthy lifestyle plan that people could actively seek to lose weight. Second place went to the team DineIn-WorkOut for their development of an inclusive community center incorporating a gym, restaurant and play center for families to lose weight together. In third place was the team Fit Happy for their idea to connect school gyms with fitness centers in the neighboring community.
Since its creation, TEN has been heavily involved in events throughout the colleges of Tacoma that unite students of all fields of study, who come together and collaborate in thought-inspiring ways that ignite their inner entrepreneur. Entrepreneurs come in many different forms and require assistance from all backgrounds of knowledge.
Students who may be interested in problem solving and creating new ideas should not consider entrepreneurship to be only for business-minded individuals. There are social entrepreneurs, nature entrepreneurs and science entrepreneurs all looking to shape the world in an inventive way. Most surprising are the skills that IT students or art majors can bring to the technical composition of a product or aesthetic design of logo branding. Entrepreneurship is a truly collaborative endeavor that joins the skills of many to create a helpful product for any purpose.
Claire wanted to make it clear that entrepreneurship “is not just about for-profit business” and that making meaningful products and making a profit are not polar opposites. Businesses can be socially minded and still make a profit.
Students also took part in Global Entrepreneur Week, which took place Nov. 12-16 and combined many different engagements for people interested in anything from chocolate to the Peace Corps.
More information about all of TEN’s events and upcoming business competitions can be found on TEN’s Facebook page or their new website, www.TacomaEntsCollege.org.
