Local News

Students' LED showerhead takes first place at Idea Pitch Competition

By Chelsea Lane GVL Assistant News Editor
10/8/2009

Twenty competitors. Ninety seconds. One winning idea.

On Wednesday night, the Collegiate Entrepeneurs' Organization hosted the 5th Annual Idea Pitch Competition, an event designed to help students take their big business ideas to the next level.

From a record 94 applicants, CEO selected the best 20 ideas to present at the competition. Participants have just 90 seconds to present their idea to a panel of judges from local businesses, without the help of any visual aids or props.

Once their time is up, presenters must immediately stop their pitch and the judges are then given a short period of time to ask additional questions about the idea.

"The whole point of that (time limit) is that if you were on an elevator ride with, let's say, a venture capitalist, then the average elevator ride lasts 90 seconds and that's all the time that you would have to get your idea out," said Katie Racey, the vice president of Marketing for the Grand Valley State University chapter of CEO.

The winner receives a cash prize of $1,500 to help develop their idea. Second- and third-place finishers also receive prize money.

Racey won last year's competition with her idea for a device that makes it possible for people who use insulin pumps to wear the pump underneath formal or professional clothing without it sticking out, preventing users from having to switch back to insulin shots. Racey is currently working on producing the device for market.

"It totally is a starting platform," she said of the Idea Pitch Competition. "It's not just the money either, it's also the fact that there's going to be business people there to help you move forward with your idea. You get a lot of contacts from it too, not just the money."

Racey said a winning idea needs to be a realistic project that could get started soon and presenters should show they have conducted market research.

This year, propositions included an electronic GPS fence for dogs, a children's book series, an online textbook Web site and a beer keg regulator.

The first place award was given to Human Resources Management major Michael McCarthy and Marketing major Michael Henkey.

McCarthy and Henkey pitched an idea for a showerhead with built-in LED lights that would illuminate the water, creating the illusion of colored shower water. During their pitch, the duo explained there would be a variety of colors to choose from so the product user could create different in-shower atmospheres.

Henkey and McCarthy believe their confident and relaxed presentation style helped give them an edge over their competitors.

"We came up, we had confidence and we were definitely ready to go," Henkey said. "We practiced our speech multiple times and I think our idea was the most plausible; the one that could go further from here on out."

The idea came to them after a casual conversation the duo had while sitting around their dorm on a Saturday night. They hope to use the prize money to help them eventually create a product prototype.

"The first step is filing a provisional patent with the patent office and then we're going to find out if Grand Rapids is where we're going to find our suppliers," McCarthy said. "We need to find a commercial supplier with LEDS and someone to stamp out a couple units for us and then hopefully sell it.

Second place went to Ashley Litke, who pitched an idea for a community biking system that would serve as an alternate method of transportation for college students. Third place was awarded to Marielle Gagnon. Her idea, the Spider Fighter, is a chemical spray to instantly kill spiders and create a hardening form so the user could pick up the spider's remains without a residue or mess.

assistantnews@lanthorn.com

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