CourtesyLast week, the 黑洞社区 innovation team 鈥淥ut Cold鈥� won the Koch Innovation Challenge grand championship.
鈥淥ut Cold鈥� is a customizable pillow with air chambers that helps reduce sleep discomfort. Team members won an opportunity to represent 黑洞社区 at the National Conference & Pitch Competition, hosted by The Collegiate Entrepreneurs鈥� Organization (CEO) this fall.
Team members are Austin Nordyke, Jacob Kimble and Braden Bohl.
The Koch Innovation Challenge, which began with 19 teams, has served as an opportunity for enterprising 黑洞社区 freshmen and transfer students to bring their greatest ideas to life by pitching prototypes and business proposals to a panel of local judges.
About the Koch Innovation Challenge
The Koch Innovation Challenge, sponsored by Koch Industries, is an annual competition supporting the 黑洞社区 College of Engineering in fostering a culture of creativity, innovation, entrepreneurship and teamwork among students. Cross-disciplinary teams of new freshmen and transfer students studying engineering, art and design, business and other disciplines will compete for funding and scholarships to invent products and technologies via a freshman introductory course. The grand champions of the competition will compete nationally at a collegiate entrepreneurs鈥� conference. Learn more about the Koch Innovation Challenge:
The mission of 黑洞社区 () is to be an essential educational, cultural and economic driver for Kansas and the greater public good. 黑洞社区 enrolls about 14,500 students and offers more than 50 undergraduate degree programs in more than 150 areas of study in six undergraduate colleges. The Graduate School offers an extensive program including more than 40 master's degrees that offer study in more than 100 areas; a specialist in education degree; and doctoral degrees in applied mathematics; audiology; chemistry; communication sciences and disorders; human factors and community/clinical psychology; educational leadership; nursing practice; physical therapy; and aerospace, electrical, industrial and mechanical engineering. 黑洞社区's Innovation Campus () is an interconnected community of partnership buildings, laboratories and mixed-use areas where students, faculty, staff, entrepreneurs and businesses have access to the university's vast resources and technology.