A celebration of the installation of a new Invent@NMU kiosk, featuring a drawing to win an iPad, drew in students with an opportunity to bring their ideas to life, furthering its slogan “all ideas are worth exploring.”
The “New Year, New Ideas” Kiosk launch event took place on Feb. 12 in the Lydia M. Olson Library. The event also promoted the kiosk that was installed during winter break and educated the NMU community about Invent@NMU and the services it offers, Invent@NMU Marketing Coordinator and NMU Alumnus Kylie Bunting said.
Submissions are open to community members, NMU students, faculty and staff. As of now, most ideas submitted to Invent@NMU are from community members who have already entered the workforce and a goal of this kiosk is to increase student submissions, Bunting said.
“We’re hoping now that we’re able to connect with all these students during this launch event that we will start getting some ideas coming directly from the kiosk,” Bunting said.
The kiosk on NMU’s campus joins three other U.P. locations including Gogebic County, Calumet and Negaunee, which will launch next week.
“We want to get the NMU community involved and have them experience the services that Invent@nmu has to offer,” Bunting said. “We want to hear all ideas, anything that might just be on your mind, or something you wrote down on a napkin one time, something like that. We want to hear about it and help you take those next steps.”
The kiosk brings users to the Invent@NMU website idea submission form that requires basic contact information and a blank box where people can describe their idea in as much detail as they need, Bunting said. After an idea is submitted, Invent@NMU does a “Quick Explore” and looks for any direct competition in the market and begin to determine the next steps for the idea, she said, adding that this first step is completely free to anyone who chooses to submit an idea.
“The thing about our process is we kind of work the way the client wants to work. If you’re a full-time student and you’re busy and you can’t move that quickly, that’s okay. If you’re really excited about this idea and you want to move as quickly as possible, that’s okay too,” Bunting said. “We’re here for support.”
The Invent@NMU office is located next to Smoothie King, which isn’t a place students frequently pass by so having the kiosk in a central location will help increase student involvement and many students are not aware of their services, Invent@NMU Marketing Assistant Joshua Gosseck, sophomore finance and risk management major said.
“We want to reach out to the student community more and I feel like this will be a really good way because it’s bright, shiny and it attracts a lot of attention,” Gosseck said.
