By Chris Kahn
ROANOKE, Va. (AP) – Creativity dulls with age. It’s a fact of life that a Roanoke company hopes to subvert by opening its doors this summer to college and high school students.
“There are a lot of brilliant Ph.D.s out there,” said Ron Blum, founder of The Egg Factory, a two-year-old firm that develops products and services for Fortune 500 companies. “But many weren’t taught to challenge the barriers of an idea. …Because these students are so young, they really don’t know where the barriers are.”
During the past few weeks, the Factory’s 16 young inventors have been dreaming up products like new fangled air fresheners and wireless music machines.
Bill Phelps, 21, whose first invention was a chocolate chip-counter for cookies, said the seven-week internship has helped him wade through the tedious parts of inventing, like filling out patent applications. “When you’re on your own, there’s a lot of sweat and tears,” said Phelps, an industrial design student at Virginia Tech. “But here, there’s someone who’s got your back.”
For the Factory’s internship, officials picked local students from more than 400 applicants. Twelve come from Virginia Tech, the University of Virginia or Roanoke College. Four students graduated from Roanoke high schools. Brad Blum, innovation project manager, said there are no specific traits of a good inventor. “If you put just about anyone in a creative environment, they’ll begin to start thinking creatively,” Blum said. The students were placed into four groups. Each has an engineering student, a liberal arts student, a business student, and a graduating high school senior.
Their mission during the next seven weeks was to create a product that met several criteria, including the potential of more than $1 billion in annual revenue and commercial development within three years.
“It’s been hard,” said Mike Zelikovich, 24, a business student from Roanoke College. “You can’t just sit with a group and say ‘OK, let’s come up with the next best thing.’ Ideas for inventions are really spontaneous.”
After the first few weeks, the groups have drawn the outlines of four new products they think will meet the criteria: an electronic device that can be powered by a wireless source; a fast-acting, long-lasting air freshener; a system that can access music files from anywhere in the world; and a method that allows people to customize their vitamins and nutritional supplement.
The groups will try to trim their innovations into marketable products during the next few weeks. Patent applications come next, and in the future, hopefully, a commercial sale.
The company will share any future profits with the students. But more than the money, Ron Blum said the students will receive an education that they really can’t receive anywhere else. This is really an art form,” Ron Blum said. “It’s a skill, and we’re trying to teach that.”
Reprinted from the Associated Press
