Imagine you see $10,000 on a table beside a sign that says you can take the money if you have a reasonably good idea for spending it. Could you come up with an idea in five months? Or 12 days?
That’s the challenge facing creative spirits in northwestern Pennsylvania who’ve been invited to enter InnovationErie with an idea for a new product that can be manufactured in the region. The call for entries was made last October, the original $1,000 grand prize was boosted 10-fold a month later, and the midnight March 2 deadline is fast approaching with less than two weeks remaining to file entries.
Too late to enter the contest? Well, certainly not until the deadline. John Vanco, director of the Erie Art Museum and one of the dozen sponsors of the competition, says, “We’ve had a lot of calls and lots of interest.”
Thus far, however, fewer than a dozen entries have been received. That situation might recast the real world scenario described above: Imagine that you are one of a half-dozen or so people who see $10,000 on a table beside a sign inviting good ideas for spending it. Anyone with a pretty good idea for a useful product with a well-conceived design that can be developed for manufacture in a no-rent incubator space, which will also be provided to the winner along with free business services and legal support for a U.S. patent application, wouldn’t want to walk away from that table.
Source: InnovationErie, John Vanco
Writer: Joseph Plummer
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