The College of Human Sciences will host its annual Entrepreneurship Showcase from 6 to 8:30 p.m. Thursday. Now in its ninth year, people from outside of the apparel, events and hospitality management department in the college are being allowed to participate for the first time.

AESHM 474-574 is the foundation course in entrepreneurship in the College of Human Sciences.

Ann Thye, adviser in the department, said she encourages all of her students to take the course.

“Entrepreneurial thinking is a valuable life skill set — learning to think outside the box,” Thye said.

Linda Niehm, professor of the class, said the course originally started out as a speaker series about entrepreneurship, but she wanted students to have the opportunity to learn the process of how to launch a business and become more engaged in the process. This is where the idea of the showcase was born.

As the capstone project for AESHM, students are expected to either develop a business plan for a new venture or consult with existing businesses to “make them over.”

“Students say time after time, ‘This really took me beyond doing a paper for class,’” Niehm said. “[Students] really have to think about and come up with a good idea that really takes a different level of thinking than just doing a report. Students have to be really innovative and come up with a distinct project that has competitive advantages in the marketplace.”

This year, Niehm said she wanted to open up the showcase to people outside the course in the College of Human Sciences so that they could become engaged in entrepreneurship in some way.

“We’re hoping to generate excitement this year and greater involvement,” Niehm said. “Maybe students will want to take the class and be more involved in entrepreneurship, or at the very minimum they will get some feedback on the viability of their idea from professionals. Maybe it will encourage them to move forward in perhaps pursuing an entrepreneurship venture of their own.”

Students will have the opportunity to pitch their business idea to a panel of judges in 90 seconds. This panel of judges consists of business consultants, extension specialists, bankers, business owners, faculty and graduate students — “people that have the necessary knowledge to evaluate these projects,” Niehm said.

Niehm said there are three different outcomes from the pitch.

First, the judges will give them feedback to move their business plan forward.

Second, students will leave the class with something that is a tangible business plan: something that has value, and with tweaking and modifying can be used to actually start something when they graduate.

Three, interacting with professionals and selling their idea takes them to a higher understanding about their project. They have to internalize the concept and really be able to sell it.

One of the projects Niehm said she was excited to see was Logan Trussell’s waffle wraps.

Trussell, senior in culinary science, will be pitching his business idea of a waffle wrap restaurant.

Trussell said his waffle wraps would be great for drunken breakfast eating, so ideally he’d like his restaurant to be located in an area such as Campustown.

The restaurant would be similar to that of Pita Pit, and students would go in and pick different ingredients to put on their waffles, and then the waffle is wrapped for on-the-go eating.

Beginning with a waffle as bread, customers select various syrups and standard breakfast toppings or fruit fillings to go inside, as well as savory options that people wouldn’t typically think of, such as chicken.

Trussell said he hopes to make some money and work on developing the business plan and work on the recipe, someday opening a food truck because food trucks are not only gaining popularity, but are able to move to where business is best.

“I’ll follow through with it … keep a lookout,” Trussell said. “If you like waffles, you’ll definitely like my waffles.”

The showcase is free and open to the public. At 6 p.m., visitors can view the exhibits, listen in on judging sessions and interact with student’s business ideas. Following the judging, the award ceremony will be at 8 p.m. in the LeBaron auditorium.

“I think the opportunity to see the innovation, creativity and entrepreneurial spirit of our students is just amazing,” Niehm said. “They surprise me year after year.”