Brigham Young University students from across campus expanded and demonstrated their innovative talents during the Rollins Center for Entrepreneurship and Technology’s fourth annual Entrepreneurship Week.
Students celebrated the spirit of innovation through activities, workshops and competitions during the week-long event geared toward showcasing the entrepreneurial resources BYU offers.
“Our role at the Rollins Center is to help students at BYU make their entrepreneurial endeavors a reality,” says Jeff Brown, the center’s program director. “That’s why we do Entrepreneurship Week. We want to reach out across campus to find students we can inspire, inform and support.”
Sponsored by the Rollins Center, E-Week began with nearly 1,000 students gathering to hear entrepreneurial insights from Nathan Hale, CEO of Sawgrass Technologies. He surprised the crowd by riding onto the stage on an electric scooter board before reminding students to work hard in their future careers while always staying true to their values.
“Work like nobody else will,” Hale advised. “With discipline and effort you can achieve your dreams but it does take discipline.”
Students put some of the practices Hale taught to the test at the Big Idea Pitch by presenting their best entrepreneurial ideas in 90 seconds or less with $2,000 at stake. Latitude, an app that allows tour guides to offer their services digitally through GPS routes and audio recordings, took first place. Kyle Taylor, a first-year MBA student from Dallas, and Brody Horton, a second-year MBA student from Layton, Utah, co-founded and pitched the company.
“Winning is like a starting line drawn in the sand for us,” Horton says. “Up until now, Latitude was something that we felt great about, but we weren't sure how successful entrepreneurs and investors would feel about it. Now that we have a positive reaction, it is up to us to prove we can execute.”
Other E-Week festivities included networking opportunities, mentoring sessions and seminars that brought established entrepreneurs and students from all corners of campus together to share ideas.
“We recognize that entrepreneurs and innovators exist inside and outside the Marriott School,” Brown says. “The biggest success of Entrepreneurship Week was the opportunity for students from different disciplines and backgrounds to meet each other. Entrepreneurship is a lot about networking and building connections that will pay dividends now and in the future.”
The Marriott School is located at Brigham Young University, the largest privately owned, church-sponsored university in the United States. The school has nationally recognized programs in accounting, business management, entrepreneurship, finance, information systems and public management. The school’s mission is to prepare men and women of faith, character and professional ability for positions of leadership throughout the world. Approximately 3,300 students are enrolled in the Marriott School’s graduate and undergraduate programs.
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Writer: Brooke Porter