RC and The Egg Factory Form Alliance
5/3/2004
SALEM, VA- Roanoke College will establish a Center
for Leadership and Entrepreneurial Innovation in
partnership with The Egg Factory, a creator and developer
of innovations
to Fortune 500 companies and private equity firms.
The Center will focus on two primary initiatives
for students enrolled in the Roanoke College business
curriculum:
an academic concentration in business leadership
and the development of entrepreneurship and innovation
skills through the alliance with The Egg Factory.
The
Center will be part of the college's Department of
Business Administration and Economics. The formal
alliance with The Egg Factory begins with the summer
2004 Innovation
Challenge.
The Center for Leadership and Entrepreneurial Innovation
is supported by a five-year grant of $651,000 from
an anonymous foundation.
"This remarkable alliance provides Roanoke College
students the unique opportunity to combine the study
of leadership with the creation of innovations in The
Egg Factory's entrepreneurial culture," Roanoke
College President David M. Gring said. "Experiences
like these are rare in the world of higher education
today."
The academic concentration in business leadership
will provide students with the necessary foundations
in critical thinking and leadership principles to enable
their development as ethical leaders capable of succeeding
in multiple organizational settings. The academic concentration
will include courses in foundations of business leadership,
team dynamics, conflict management, business ethics,
social psychology and advanced topics in leadership.
The principles taught in this new curriculum will focus
on how leaders must continuously transform organizations
in order to remain viable in the 21st century hypercompetitive
marketplace.
"From the Industrial Age to the Technology Age,
innovation has been the foundation of business success.
Graduates entering today's competitive business environment
must embrace and understand the importance of innovation
and how to implement it," said Dr. Ron Blum, CEO
of The Egg Factory and a member of the Roanoke College
Board of Trustees. "The Center for Leadership
and Entrepreneurial Innovation gives Roanoke College
students the opportunity to develop these skills through
academic study and the real world experiences they
gain at The Egg Factory. I know of no other program
for innovation in the country that builds a business
foundation for success in the manner that this center
will."
The alliance with The Egg Factory prepares Roanoke
College business graduates to deal with the complexities
of leadership in an innovation culture and to develop
entrepreneurial skills through student participation
in The Egg Factory's intensive summer Innovation Challenge
program and individual internships with The Egg Factory
during the academic year. Innovation Challenge is an
extraordinary opportunity for Roanoke College students
to conceive proprietary innovations and to develop
the associated business plan. Students learn first
hand about innovation, intellectual property, market
analysis, technology development and entrepreneurship.
This competitive, eight-week program brings together
outstanding business, engineering, humanities, and
industrial design students from some of the finest
colleges and universities in the nation. One of The
Egg Factory's recent innovations, PocketMate™,
which is being developed through an alliance with Avery
Dennison, was generated through Innovation Challenge.
"The Center will offer cutting-edge programs
that very few private liberal arts colleges make available
to undergraduates," says Dr. Larry Lynch, chair
of the Business Administration and Economics Department. "Roanoke
College now has an opportunity to be a leader in the
field of business education by developing and offering
these innovative and relevant programs."
In addition to the Innovation Challenge, The Egg Factory
will serve as an internship site for Roanoke College
students. The Egg Factory internship provides students
with the remarkable opportunity to work directly with
The Egg Factory executives as they take transformational
innovations from concept to entry in the marketplace.
Roanoke College, the country's second oldest Lutheran-related
college, is an independent, co-educational, four-year
liberal arts college. Its 1,900 students represent
Virginia, 39 states across the U.S. and 16 foreign
countries. It offers 34 majors with bachelor's degrees
in arts, science and business, as well as pre-professional
majors in law, medicine, dentistry, engineering and
ministry. The College is listed in U.S. News & World
Report's Best Colleges Guide as a national liberal
arts college. Roanoke is one of just 270 colleges nationwide
with a chapter of Phi Beta Kappa, the nation's oldest
and most prestigious honor societies.
For additional information, call the Roanoke College
Public Relations Office at (540) 375-2282.
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About The Egg Factory
The Egg Factory, LLC, is an organization dedicated
to the creation and development of significant consumer
and industrial innovations. The company creates transformational
technology and global innovative solutions and then
sells or licenses them to Fortune 500 companies,
and private equity firms for their commercialization.
Since its founding, The Egg Factory (TEF) has provided
a number of significant innovations to large global
companies and private equity firms including: e-Vision,
(electro-active focusing optics technology for the
correction of presbyopia) to Johnson & Johnson;
AgroShieldTM , (polymer technology that protects
crops against loss due to freezing temperatures)
to a private equity group. TEF recently formed an
alliance with Avery Dennison to develop PocketMate™,
a product intended to provide a unique, hassle-free
means for carrying and storing personal or valuable
items, such as identification and money, and for
secretly storing tracking devices to protect children
and loved ones. Today, TEF has more than two-dozen
innovations at various stages of development. For
additional information about TEF, and its innovations
visit www.eggfactory.com.
Contact: Teresa Gereaux gereaux@roanoke.edu
