{"id":9058,"date":"2020-11-19T17:35:22","date_gmt":"2020-11-19T17:35:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/2020\/11\/19\/innovation-hour-brings-good-ideas-to-life\/"},"modified":"2022-09-07T15:36:23","modified_gmt":"2022-09-07T19:36:23","slug":"innovation-hour-brings-good-ideas-to-life","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/innovation-hour-brings-good-ideas-to-life\/","title":{"rendered":"Innovation Hour brings good ideas to life"},"content":{"rendered":"

Creative people find outlets for their gifts through paint and canvas, a camera lens, ink and paper, clay on a potter\u2019s wheel, or maybe a well-worn stage. But where\u2019s the conduit for a great idea, such as a web application or nonprofit?<\/p>\n

The Furman Creative Collaborative’s Innovation Hour is one avenue for students to pitch those ideas to a group of professionals.<\/p>\n

In partnership with the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute<\/a>, Innovation Hour has wrapped its third installment of the class. Since mid-September, presenters have offered their ideas to OLLI members on Zoom. On November 12, winners were announced, and $6,000 in prize money was divvied up to help student innovators develop their work.<\/p>\n

Selected from a cohort of 11, the winning projects are:<\/p>\n

\"\"

From left: Ian McPherson ’23, Andrew McHorse ’23, Eli Thitherington ’22<\/p><\/div>\n

1st\u00a0place:<\/strong> Hobby, an online platform that builds community through sharing new experiences, skills, and projects. Leveraging an increasingly virtual world, the creators say the platform focuses on social connection, building fellowship between users, and allowing for unique relationships between content creators and consumers.<\/p>\n

Winners fetching a share of the $3,500 include biology major Ian McPherson \u201923, sustainability science major Andrew McHorse \u201923 and Eli Titherington \u201922, a public health major.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe win is a huge confirmation that this idea has potential,” Titherington said, speaking on behalf of the three honorees. “Over the next several months, our team will be working to build out our idea \u2013 creating concept marketing, presentation materials and a model of our platform. The Innovation Hour funding allows us to move from concept to concrete \u2013 a huge progression in making Hobby a reality.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Kelly

Kelly Hornberger ’23.<\/p><\/div>\n

2nd\u00a0place:<\/strong> Surgery on Sunday \u2013 East Tennessee, a nonprofit organization originally launched in Kentucky that provides medically necessary outpatient surgeries at no cost to income-eligible, uninsured or underinsured individuals who do not qualify for federal or state assistance.<\/p>\n

Kelly Hornberger \u201923, a\u00a0 public health major with a minor in medicine, health and culture, aims to implement the initiative in her hometown region. \u201cSOS – East Tennessee is investigating how to continue building our organization in light of COVID-19, which has reinforced the need for accessible health care,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Hornberger said the announcement of the $1,500 grant money moved her to tears. \u201cI\u2019m so grateful because this money is going to save someone\u2019s life.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Chase

Chase Pittman ’21.<\/p><\/div>\n

3rd\u00a0place:<\/strong> ScrubSome, an application that makes social media posts squeaky clean by scouring posts and removing offensive words. ScrubSome, a.k.a. \u201csocial media soap,\u201d is the brainchild of senior economics major Chase Pittman. Winner of $1,000 toward the application, which is already in use in the market, Pittman rushed to notify his team of the award. \u201cWe plan on using the money to jumpstart our marketing campaign. I couldn\u2019t be happier about the opportunity,” he said. “I look forward to making the most of it.”<\/p>\n

All winners are invited back the following year to report on how they are using the funds and where they are in developing their ideas. And while the money is nice, students participate in Innovation Hour \u201cto perfect their ideas,\u201d says JohnPaul Sleiman \u201921, Innovation Hour student director. \u201cThe money is just an added bonus,\u201d said the physics and earth, environmental and sustainability sciences double major.<\/p>\n

\"johnpaul

JohnPaul Sleiman ’21. Photo\/Center for Astrophysics, Harvard & Smithsonian<\/p><\/div>\n

David Johnson, OLLI president, says he couldn\u2019t pull off the class year after year without the support of so many, including super-driven student facilitators like Sleiman and faculty advisor Brandon Inabinet, founder of Innovation Hour and associate professor in the Department of Communication Studies. \u201cDr. Inabinet has been very supportive since the beginning,\u201d said Johnson.<\/p>\n

With a strong base of support, the class continues to provide value to innovators and OLLI members alike.<\/p>\n

OLLI members, who traditionally support Furman through athletics, programs from The Riley Institute and the arts, find satisfaction in hearing about students\u2019 ideas for nonprofits or inventions, said Johnson.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey enjoy providing feedback and making suggestions: \u2018Have you thought of this?\u2019 or \u2018I know someone you can talk to that might help your project,\u2019” said Johnson.<\/p>\n

\"David

David Johnson.<\/p><\/div>\n

While enrollment is down overall for OLLI due to COVID-19, Johnson doesn\u2019t see Innovation Hour going away. One indicator of the course\u2019s popularity is the rise in monetary support for innovators over the years thanks to OLLI\u2019s considerable infusion of cash and FCC\u2019s generous contribution.<\/p>\n

Last year, Furman\u2019s Institute for Innovation and Entrepreneurship\u00a0contributed funds, as well. Not to be confused with Innovation Hour, the institute’s Paladin Pitch competition leans more toward for-profit, entrepreneurial work. \u201cThey also have more money to give away,\u201d Johnson laughed.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve had good support from Anthony Herrera (executive director of FU I&E),\u201d said Johnson. \u201cAnthony has been working with JohnPaul, and he helps beat the bushes to find student presenters. We work well together.\u201d In fact, some Innovation Hour presenters go on to showcase their concepts at the Paladin Pitch competition<\/a>, which takes place in spring semester.<\/p>\n

Johnson hopes to draw more students to Innovation Hour, many of whom bring ideas for promoting social good. \u201cStudents have some great ideas,” he said. “They want to give back to society and their communities.”<\/p>\n

Learn more about Furman Creative Collaborative, the umbrella organization for Innovation Hour and TEDxFurmanU, at FCC on Instagram<\/a>. To enter the fray in fall 2021, contact Brandon Inabinet at brandon.inabinet@furman.edu<\/a>, and 864-294-3058.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Creative people find outlets for their gifts through paint and canvas, a camera lens, ink and paper, clay on a potter\u2019s wheel, or maybe a well-worn stage. But where\u2019s the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":257,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[15,26,19,51,37,46,21,81,85,49,27,13,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9058","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-academic-department-page","category-administrative","category-biology","category-communication-studies","category-earth-environmental-and-sustainability-sciences","category-economics","category-health-sciences","category-innovation-and-entrepreneurship","category-olli-at-furman","category-physics","category-student-life","category-top-four-news-4th-story","category-uncategorized"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9058","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/257"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9058"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9058\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9058"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9058"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9058"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}