Kicking off on the evening of Friday, April 3, students will
be welcomed to Alfred University’s Knight Club with an opening banquet dinner
and addressed by higher education administrators. Following opening remarks,
students will form cross-institutional, cross-disciplinary teams to work on
solving a problem that faces them – this year’s challenge focuses on the issue
of sustainability - meeting today’s needs without compromising tomorrow’s resources. For the next day and a half the students will
work on teams, with guidance from mentors, to develop an entrepreneurial
solution to the problem they identify and prepare a pitch presentation. The event will wrap up on Sunday, April 5,
when the student teams pitch their ideas to a panel of judges and a winning team
is selected.
Over the course of the past several months, local leaders
from Allegany County, ACCORD, Alfred State College, Alfred University, Houghton
College, Incubator Works, and WIN, have met frequently to discuss stimulating
entrepreneurial activity and nurturing talent in Allegany County. The group has dubbed itself ‘Startup
Allegany’ – a fitting moniker for a collaborative group that’s singularly
focused on building a robust entrepreneurial ecosystem and supporting start-up
businesses in Allegany County. The
county-wide student business competition is an extension of those efforts and
an enticing way to identify and encourage young entrepreneurs. First-year Alfred University Assistant
Professor of Finance, Dr. Jason Morrison, who is himself an entrepreneur,
faculty advisor to the freshly re-started Entrepreneurs Club at the University,
and member of Startup Allegany, believes competitions encourage students of all
disciplines to think creatively. "Entrepreneurship
is a collaborative effort, and with the support and mentorship that we seek to
provide our students, we believe that the potential growth and development of
not only their own brands but that of the local community will be greatly
improved,” said Morrison. “This
competition is the first step towards empowering the students and the community
together, and we hope to have many more successful events in the future.” Dr.
Craig Clark, Vice President of Economic Development at Alfred State College and
Executive Director of the Allegany County IDA, thinks this competition is a
good first step in identifying entrepreneurs of future startup businesses in
Allegany County and getting them the support they need early on.
“Allegany County has had the pieces of a strong
entrepreneurial ecosystem in place for a number of years – between the three
colleges, Incubator Works, ACCORD, and the County – but with this collaboration
through Startup Allegany, we’re able to harness the synergy of all the players
working together,” said Clark. “Individually,
we’ve all been thinking about this problem of how to identify entrepreneurial
talent and business ideas among our significant student population; this
cross-county competition is a good step to doing just that. The next step is then showing these students
that might be inclined to start their own business the benefits, like low
startup costs, and incentives available to them right here in Allegany County,
so that they’ll consider staying here and starting their business here upon
graduating.”
After obtaining grant funding to serve Allegany County from
their Alfred facility, non-profit Incubator Works began reaching out to
community groups to find entrepreneurs, encourage them, and help them launch or
grow their new business. Clients can
rent below market lab or office space or take advantage of the ‘virtual’
mentoring, as it is no longer necessary to be a tenant to benefit from this
free service. Working with the Startup
Allegany members, they began to work more closely with the County’s colleges to
identify ways to engage student entrepreneurs. The efforts of Incubator Works
staff have been the driving force behind the establishment of the Startup Allegany
and the creation of the Startup Allegany Collegiate Competition.
Nancy Kirby, Executive Director of Incubator Works, believes
the student pitch competition will be a great catalyst toward entrepreneurial
development in the region. She stated,
“We have numerous successful entrepreneurs in our region, many of them alumni of
our three schools of higher education.
We will pull from this pool of talent and expertise to serve as coaches
and judges; which will help create mentor connections and will also drive home
the point that you don’t have to be in Silicon Valley to be a successful
Startup! Additionally, by bringing in
some of our incubator network resources, we hope students realize that
world-class assistance is in place and available to support them on their
Startup journey.”
Organizers are hopeful that this year’s competition will
attract some significant student interest, as they hope to develop the Startup
Allegany Collegiate Competition into an annual event, with each college taking
a turn at hosting the event.
