Two from Hampton Roads help in hunt for golden egg
INSIDE BUSINESS - HAMPTON ROADS
July 21, 2003
Jennifer Ackerman
This summer, Shweta Agarwal of Virginia Beach and
Laura Braaten of Chesapeake are participating in the
internship program at the Egg Factory in Roanoke, a
company that turns ideas into marketable products.
Not just any old dime-store widgets, but products that
have the potential to produce at least $1 billion in
annual revenues within five years of launch by a global
company.
Agarwal and Braaten might even come up with an invention
that significantly alters an industry as they participate
in the Egg Factory's Innovation Challenge Internship
Program, offered every summer to 16 students from around
the world. Created in 1999 by Ronald D. Blum, an optometrist,
inventor and entrepreneur who founded Innotech, the
Egg Factory LLC opened its doors in the summer of 2001
to high school and college students with the launch
of the internship program. Young people, explains Blum,
are not inhibited by barriers that might limit an older
person's thinking.
This intensive eight-week program, or quest for a
potential "golden egg," takes place in Roanoke,
ending Aug. 1. The 16 participants from various colleges
and universities, all of whom live in apartments leased
by Roanoke College during the internship, are divided
into four "cross-functional" teams, teams
with a mix of talents. Each consists of a business
major, an engineer, a liberal arts major and an industrial
design major.
According to Adam Hofheimer, the factory's manager
of innovation services, the internship program succeeds
because "everyone has a different skill base and
brings something different to the project."
Each team is challenged to generate a technology concept
that can be commercially developed within three years
and worth more than $1 billion in five years. Working
in partnership with the staff at the Egg Factory, each
group of four supports its idea with a business plan,
with the goal of turning that plan into a marketable
product for a Fortune 500 company.
Students attend seminars given by experts from around
the world, many from top companies and schools, and
they are mentored by professors, businessmen, scientists
and technology specialists. At the end of the program,
each team presents its innovative product or service
to the company's board of managers and representatives
from the academic and business community, although
the students may not reveal their creation to the outside
world until it is much nearer the "fait accompli" stage.
At the end of each summer internship, one innovation
is pronounced the most golden egg and the team that
created it receives a cash award. Should an egg hit
the market, each of those team members receives a 1
percent profit.
Agarwal, a rising senior at University of Virginia,
and Braaten, a rising senior at Roanoke College, were
chosen from more than 1,400 applicants. According to
Braaten, who represents the liberal arts element, the
two are on the same team to create a health and beauty
product. As a French major, she helps the group think
outside the box.
"I have not been taught the rules of innovation
and therefore can be more creative," said Braaten.
Agarwal is the business and marketing component of
the project.
The Egg Factory has filed for more than 200 patents
since its founding. According to Hofheimer, five out
of the 10 projects in the factory's "pipeline" were
hatched in previous internship programs. These include "Scent-a-peel," a
new method for containing and releasing scented products,
and "Vita-Mine," a dietary-supplement regimen
that can be customized for each consumer.
