Three student teams from Missouri University of Science and Technology went head-to-head with others from across the region during the Idea-to-Product competition, hosted March 7 and 8 by Saint Louis University.
Missouri S&T undergraduate student John Gier of Marshalltown, Iowa, graduate student Paul Robinette of Rolla, and Missouri S&T alumnus Ryanne Dolan, now a Ph.D. student at the University of Missouri-Columbia, represented Missouri S&T at the competition. There were a total of 20 student teams at the competition, which were assigned to one of five different tracks to present to panels of judges March 7. The best teams then were selected to present ideas to a different panel March 8. Among Missouri S&T’s competitors were students from SLU, Washington University, the University of Illinois-Champaign, the Illinois Institute of Technology and Missouri State University.
“These three young men did an outstanding job representing Missouri S&T in the competition,” says Malcolm Townes, business development specialist with Missouri S&T’s Office of Technology Transfer and Economic Development.
Gier’s entry, an innovative cooling system for body armor that draws power from various renewable energy sources, placed first in his track and came in fifth in the overall competition. Moreover, Gier walked away with business cards from two angel investors.
The teams of Robinette and Dolan, who had two entries in the competition, barely missed the cut for the second day’s round for top-five entries. Their entries were a low-cost, interactive white board and digital capture device called an eBoard, and NxBz, a business and resource management software suite for small businesses.
“Feedback from experienced industry professionals really helped us figure out what our next step should be,” Robinette says.
Missouri S&T graduate student Ryan Meuth of Rolla, and undergraduate Paul Drews of Floristell, Mo., also worked on the team that developed the idea for the eBoard.
“The students did a remarkable job, given that they had less than three weeks to prepare their entries,” Townes says. “Most of the other teams that performed well had participated in the Idea-to-Product competition previously, prepared their entries as part of a semester-long class assignment or competed in other business plan competitions.”
Barry White, director of Missouri S&T’s Center for Entrepreneurship and Outreach agrees.
“We learned a great deal about this unique type of competition in our first attempt,” he says. “As a solo entry, John Gier essentially beat out teams that had extensive faculty support to earn an invitation to present on the second day of the competition. That is a huge accomplishment.”
The Office of Technology Transfer and Economic Development serves as the focal point for entrepreneurship, economic development, technology transfer and technology commercialization within Missouri S&T. The Center for Entrepreneurship and Outreach is part of the Office of Technology Transfer and Economic Development.
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