Hi, I'm Micky Creech, the program manager for the Purdue Student
Soybean Innovation Competition.
Hopefully you've already heard about the competition,
but if you haven't, it's a very neat competition,
unique only to Purdue and Purdue students,
where student teams come up with new and innovative ways to use soy,
either an existing product or a brand new product.
The competition is open to undergraduate and graduate students.
Teams are made up of two students to four students.
They work starting about September through March
to work on their products and their prototypes.
You will have a working prototype by the end of the competition,
and your product idea needs to be novel.
It has to be either a new product that hasn't had soy in it before
or an existing product where
teams find ways to use soy
that makes the product more useful to the consumer.
We have stages throughout the competition
and we will help you with each stage.
The competition ends with a really nice awards ceremony
that usually hosts over 300 people.
A lot of representatives from Purdue,
family, friends, ISA
and other companies that are interested in your soy based product.
Additionally, we have added an Aspire internship
to the end of the competition.
Successful finishers of the Soy Competition
have an opportunity at a paid internship
to continue to work on their soy based product.
But let's not just take my word for it.
Let's hear from some previous students from the soy competition.
What the soybean competition does is
you actually get to create a tangible product.
You get to see it from start to finish,
which is really all about end to end product understanding.
I have industry experience from my internships and recent experience
as an undergrad researcher,
but none of those were real leadership experiences,
so this competition gives you the chance
to plan your own projects, plan your own research,
plan your own budgets,
and you really get the chance to be an entrepreneur
for about eight months.
It was one of the best things I ever did my freshman year.
Not only did my team win $20,000 at the end of the competition,
but I also was able to participate in the Aspire internship.
Being able to talk about the soybean competition
has been helpful with my resume.
It's really all the
viewers want to talk about when they see
that you've done a competition, especially for multiple years,
and are able to actually make a prototype
that's something very attractive to them.
I recruited for my last company
and my current company now,
so a student coming in with diverse answers
and using it as an example or two has really diversified
those candidates.
It's kind of intimidating to come into this big engineering competition
when I'm not from that background.
But this competition showed me that really you need both
engineers and business
minded people in this competition to be successful,
because this competition is based of one third of your prototype.
A third of your presentation and a third of your market research plan.
You have to be able to see the big picture.
You're starting
with a project beginning
and you have to see it all the way through,
even to a marketable product, which is what you do in the real world.
Right?
Having a potential patent
or our product is a big difference
maker for employers
and it helped get me
three internships while I was at Purdue and a job now.
And then if you end up completing the whole competition,
the Indiana Soybean Alliance gives everyone a completion prize,
and it's usually something really cool.
This year it was airpod pros.
So even if you don't win, you could walk out of here
with a great experience and something really cool.
So how do you get started?
Well, the first step is to form a team.
Teams need to be 2 to 4 student
or you can register as an individual and we will help you make a team.
Check out the web page that has lots
and lots of information on it, including all the due dates.
Check it out. Lots of information.
Let me know if you have any questions.
And hope to see you soon.