By: Kamil Wojciak, Staff Writer
Here at Regis University, students and staff were able to promote their businesses and business ideas, and had the opportunity to receive cash prizes to help their businesses become successful. Hosted by the Innovation Center and the Anderson College of Business, the 2019 Regis Innovation Challenge Finals took place in the Mountain View Room of Claver Hall on April 12th, 7:00 PM to around 9:35 PM. This final competition had nine finalists pitching their business ideas for the prizes of $1,000, $5,000, and $10,000, to help start their business. In the words of Dr. Ken Sagendorf, the director of the Innovation Center, this competition is meant to help “solve our world’s problems, and make it better.”
These nine competitors all presented at the event, in this chronological order:
MyHomeFix: an augmented-reality and educational app with the purpose of helping to do home repairs, using tutorials and step-by-step guides.
Invictus Project: a mental health procedure focused on traumatic brain injuries, PTSD, depression, and more; the Invictus Project also brings a more scientific approach to mental treatment with hormone replacement, ketamine infusion, high oxygen hyperbaric therapy, and more.
Instream Water: a highly convenient and affordable water refill station, helping remove plastic waste by removing the need of plastic water bottles.
Brand$tanding: a card game where you pitch business ideas, also serving the purpose of educating people.
Rock-n-Rides: a transportation service that goes to the Red Rocks Amphitheatre from the Denver area and vice-versa.
The Nest: an empowering spiritual movement by the use of workshops and retreats.
A To Z Logic: a service specializing in enterprise cyber security, intended for mid-size companies to households.
PinQuest Golf: a golf training app meant to improve the short game, while being fun and competitive.
CampCrate: a service that allows people to rent a box of camping equipment, and receive planning details for specific trips/adventures.
For the competition, each team had five minutes to pitch their business idea to the audience and judges. Immediately after pitching their ideas, the judges had five minutes to ask questions on the business idea. Even though the judges contributed to most of the competitors’ scores (80% of the final score), the audience was actually able to vote on the competitors themselves (20% of the final score). For the audience to vote, all they had to do was go onto a specific website, and enter the percent of favorability of each presenter; also, the total percent of favorability had to equal 100%.
With all the voting and scoring provided by the judges and audience, they were able to announce the competitors that will receive the cash prizes. The three competitors announced were MyHomeFix, Invictus, and CampCrate. All three competitors on the stage waited to hear what prize they were going to get. Then, they announced the prizes to each of the competitors. The competitor that received the $1,000 prize was Invictus, the competitor that received the $5,000 prize was MyHomeFix, and last but not least, CampCrate received the $10,000 prize.
While the competitors and some audience members may have seen the event as serious, it was highly educational and entertaining to see the innovative concepts displayed on that stage that night. If you have missed this event, I highly recommend you go to the final event of the 2020 Innovation Challenge on April 17th, 2020!