My entrepreneurship story takes place quite recently, in the summer of 2017. I am in the Innovation Academy, and one of the courses for the innovation minor, Creativity in Action, involves an entrepreneurship competition called Catalyst. Each summer, a Catalyst theme is announced, and all students in Creativity in Action participating in Catalyst develop an innovative idea for a product or business and present it to judges. These judges tend to be local leaders in business and entrepreneurship, and as such this contest provides a way for students to get their foot in the door either with their own products or with one of the judges. When I participated in Catalyst, our theme was public health. My group decided to tackle the issue of medical noncompliance. Initially we sought to address this issue in elderly populations, but given that our product, Med-ID, incorporated an app and smartphones, we decided to switch to another demographic that has issues with medical noncompliance: millennials. Med-ID itself was an app that, through the use of near-field communication technology available in smartphones, could be synced up with NFC stickers that would be attached to pharmaceutical packaging, utilizing customized alarms and other medical information to increase the proper use of prescribed medications. Although my group did not end up winning any awards for this product, I still feel that it gave me my first real brush with entrepreneurship, and left me wanting more.
I am enrolled in ENT 3003 primarily because it is a vital aspect of the innovation minor, but also for reasons beyond that. Throughout my time working on the innovation minor I have had trouble finding ways that it ties in with my double-major in history and political science. In taking this course, I am hoping that I may find a better understanding of how I can incorporate entrepreneurship and innovation into my majors.
Dear Elery,
ReplyDeleteThank you so much for sharing your study - it was very exciting to read about! That is so cool that you got to be involved in such an amazing opportunity. I think that's so cool that you were given a first hand experience on how to sell and create a product - that definitely puts you ahead of a lot of other students. It is amazing how many opportunities UF has to offer like the one you took on last summer. The product you created is very interesting! I believe there is a huge problem with teen over use of medication - prescribed or not. Great job Elery !