Students: a design competition for you

The Carolinas Product Development and Management Association (PDMA) announces the Carolinas Student Product Design Competition 2011.

Who: Students at colleges in North and South Carolina are eligible to submit a design a new product or service of their own creation to the Carolinas Student Product Design Competition 2011. Submissions will be judged based on originality, feasibility, and market potential of the product or service concept. Submissions may come from individuals or teams who developed the product during Fall 2010 or Spring 2011. Submissions will be evaluated by experienced new product developers and product management professionals from Carolinas PDMA and Enventys (http://enventys.com).

Awards:

·         Graduate and Undergraduate categories, 1st, 2nd and 3rd place teams.

·         Cash and services totaling $10,000 divided between the winning teams. Details to follow.

Winners will receive an invitation to present their product or service at the Innovate Carolina conference in Charlotte on April 15. Teams will have two hotel rooms reserved for them at the conference hotel.

Dates
·         Intent to submit, with team members’ names and brief concept description: March 1, 2011

·         Deadline for submission: April 1

·         Announcement of winners and invitation to present: April 8

·         Conference and presentation of awards: April 15

Entries should be submitted in PDF or Word formats.

Sponsors
Enventys, the Charlotte-based product innovation company, is helping sponsor this event.

PDMA is the premier advocate and comprehensive resource for the profession of product development and innovation. http://www.pdma.org/chapter_home.cfm?pk_chapter=7

Additional criteria will be posted on the Carolinas PDMA and Innovate Carolina 2011 conference web sites. http://innovatecarolina.wordpress.com/

For more information, contact Carl Turner, Ph.D., PMP
VP of Academic Outreach, Carolinas PDMA
cturner3rd@hotmail.com

Join us as we discuss the entrepreneurial university

Next week, UNC Chancellor Holden Thorp will be a featured speaker at The Atlantic Monthly's "Jobs and the Economy" summit in Washington, D.C. The Feb. 9 event at the Newseum will be webcast live at this site. Hope to see you there, in person or online.

UPDATE, Friday, Feb. 4: We now have more details about the event. It is called "Finding Work, Finding Our Way: Building the Economy & Jobs of the Future," and will run from 8 a.m. to noon. We are excited that UNC-Chapel Hill and Miami University of Ohio are the only two universities invited to participate. Chancellor Thorp will speak to the group, our students have submitted videos on innovative projects, and a handful of students will attend in person and virtually. For all the details, see this UNC news release.

Hello, I'm your guide to innovation at Carolina

I'll be blogging here from time to time, hopefully pointing you to links about innovation at Carolina, and elsewhere. Let's get started. The University Gazette (the faculty-staff newsletter for the Carolina campus) published a profile introducing me to campus. If you wish, read it here.