Today we all participated in an innovation tournament. There is a cool website where we submitted innovative new ideas. Each person had to submit 10 ideas and then all of us had to rate 200 or so of those ideas. From our 300 ideas the top 30 were selected this morning to be presented in an elevator pitch style presentation.
I was pretty excited because 4 of my ideas were picked in the top 30 and it took me by surprise because I’ve never thought of myself as an “idea guy” or someone who has these “innovative” ideas.
My 4 ideas were:
1. Transition Lighting. This is best described as an automatic dimmer switch that is connected to wireless sensors in the room that detect the amount of light that is already in the room. (Windows, lamps, etc.) After it detects the amount of light it adjusts the top light to a previously decided setting. This way when it is very sunny outside and you only need minimal lighting it can easily detect that and adjust the light to save you energy and thus money from not having full lights on when they are not needed.
2. Washer/Dryer Transitioner. This idea is a washer and dryer combo that are two separate machines, but are connected so that when your clothes finish washing they are automatically moved into the dryer and dried at the settings you previously set before putting them in the washer. You can still have the option of using just the washer or the dryer, but this way when a load finishes washing you don’t have to worry about moving it to the dryer.
3. Steam Armoire. This is an armoire with a built in steamer. The idea is you put all of your wrinkled clothes in and turn it on. Your wrinkles are steamed out, the closet is then ventilated, and then that steam is released to humidify the air. It would have the appearance of a normal/nice armoire for aesthetic purposes.
4. TV Picture Frame. The idea is simple. It would be to sell a frame/software set for TVs. Many TVs have replaced family pictures above the fireplace and this idea would be to add a nice frame to your TV and with a small software kit you would be able to upload your family portrait and it would display when the TV was off.
So, I decided to present on the Transition Lighting idea for the elevator pitch portion of the day. After all of the elevator pitches we were each given $10,000 to “invest” in our favorite ideas, or 10 increments of $1,000. Our professors were given $20,000 and we all put our investment sticky notes on the ideas we liked best. We took a break from lunch and when we came back the top 10 winners were announced. These top ideas were going to be presented on that night with a brief feasibility report. I was surprised when I found out my Transition Lighting idea took first place in the elevator competition and had to pick a team to help present on this idea.
Becky D. and Steve joined the Transition Lighting team and we began work on putting together all of the stats and information needed for our presentation later that night. We had about 4 hours to put this presentation together and we somehow were able to pull it off and even put together a video on our new product called Lumos Lightworks.
We presented and our idea made it to the final round! This project is our main final project and we will now put together a whole business plan for this idea, complete with financials, marketing strategy, and everything in between. Andrew A. joined our team and I’m excited to see how the final project comes together!
After we did our presentation we went out and got some GREAT Chinese food just around the corner from our hotel. I just thought it was funny how we were in Paris…eating Chinese food. It was really good and was super cheap…so you can’t complain about that! J
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