The Iowa State Pappajohn Center for Entrepreneurship will hold its 6th annual Iowa State Innovation Prize to incentivize the innovative spirit at Iowa State. The event is cohosted by the Agricultural Entrepreneurship Initiative and offers a $1,500 cash prize to the winners of each challenge. Students, faculty, staff and the entrepreneurial community are all welcome to participate in the event.

The competition will include three separate challenges or focus areas for participants to choose from, one challenge to represent each co-host, as well as a more broad third challenge. Participants will address issues related to their chosen focus area and come up with a solution to be presented in a pitch to a panel of judges.

Students are encouraged to compete in small groups, according to the Innovation Challenge website, small groups regularly outperform larger groups or individuals when it comes to innovation. Finding a small team of similarly minded individuals could give participants an advantage in the actual competition.

The AgTech challenge will ask participants to consider, “How do we increase the productivity of the global agricultural system with a less negative impact on land, energy, water and Mother Earth?” Potential focus areas include food security, carbon sequestration, alternative energy sources and many more.

The EdTech challenge will address the question, “How do we design & reinvent learning for a better experience (quality & value) in an age of accelerating technology?” Students are encouraged to think outside the box to consider how to improve education and alternative classroom practices that could lead to better student experiences.

The last innovation challenge is Global Impact; this focus is the broadest of the three so participants will be expected to thing big. According to the Innovation Challenge website, Participants will be asked “How do we improve the quality of life and continue to help solve urgent issues all around the globe?” Potential focuses include fighting poverty and world hunger, overcoming inequalities in developing nations and anything that could improve welfare on a global scale.

The event will take place on campus, at the Student Innovation Center. Opportunities to build a team begins 5p.m. on Friday. The event continues at 9 a.m. on Saturday, where participants are given more time to work on their projects, until 12 p.m. when lunch is provided. After lunch, participants will be coached in refining their pitches before the final presentations at 3 p.m..

To register for the competition, or to learn more about the competition, follow this link to the Pappajohn’s Center for Entrepreneurship Website.