This week UTC Honors College students are teaming up with students from other area honors and leadership programs as pioneer participants in a new kind of problem-solving activity: the 2015 Ideathon!
This event is being co-sponsored by the UTC Honors College, the Chattanooga Innovation District, and Company Lab; all of which have one big thing in common: we like the idea of bringing college students together to provide new insights into some community challenges. We can’t wait to see what they come up with!
Students will come together at the Edney Building, the first designated building in Chattanooga’s new 140-acre Innovation District, to lend their creativity, energy, and brain power to the question of how we can make the Innovation District a magnet for area college students. Students will work teams with others from our area to answer that question.
On Thursday, September 10, participants will tour the Innovation District and learn what it is and why it matters to Chattanooga; they’ll also form teams and take on a research question.
On Friday, September 11, teams will meet in the Edney Building for brainstorming sessions with team mentors, and then work through design thinking processes as they spend the night in a creative-thinking “lock in.”
On Saturday, September 12, teams will meet again with their mentors other professionals versed in technology, presentation skills, and more city information. That afternoon, teams will make formal presentations of their ideas. There will be a prize for the Crowd Favorite and a Judges’ Prize as well. Students will leave knowing they’ve offered up their talents to help make Chattanooga the most innovative small city in the nation!