Auburn University’s Thomas Walter Center for Technology Management, along with the Business-Engineering-Technology (B-E-T) program and the new Auburn Student Inventor’s Club, recently held its second annual Invention2Venture (i2v) Apprentice Challenge workshop, a program that equips students with entrepreneurial skills. Twenty-one students on five teams heard from a panel of entrepreneurs and completed a 72-hour challenge to select a product or service, sell it on a football weekend and produce a profit using a $100 seed investment. Each team was required to return the investment, as well as provide evidence of their net profits over costs and original investment. Teams were evaluated by a panel of judges on profits, scalability, uniqueness and moral appeal. The first place team was awarded $1,000 for generating income by selling water, cookies, pretzels and milk to football fans on game day. The second-place team received $500 selling Auburn colored bracelet shakers to football fans, a picture taken with a team member painted as “Blue Man” and cake pops. This year’s workshop was sponsored by Wal-Mart Distribution Center, Auburn Research and Technology Park, Samuel Ginn College of Engineering, College of Business and the Thomas Walter Center.
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