A Blueprint to Becoming an Inventor

My first introduction to engineering...

as a profession was through tales of career inventors and innovators, developing technologies, and subsequently the companies they developed into global empires. Think Henry Ford, with the modern vehicle production line, or Edwin Land, the inventor of the Polaroid. For as long as I can remember, I wanted to become a mechanical engineer because I dreamt of one day inventing a product that would be sold on the mass market.  As a Virginia Tech student, I don’t have to dream, I can do. You can do too, with the help of Virginia Tech’s Apex Center for Entrepreneurs.

The Apex Center for Entrepreneurs is an organization and community of entrepreneurs dedicated to supporting students in entrepreneurial ventures.

They host a variety of experiential programs and community events, designed to introduce people to the basic principles of entrepreneurship and support student projects regardless of where students are in their entrepreneurship journeys. They are technically a part of the Pamplin College of Business, but most people who utilize the Apex Center’s resources are actually engineering students!

Getting involved with the Apex Center is easy!

All events are posted on GobblerConnect and occur regularly. If you’re looking to see what the Apex Center is all about, the best event to attend is Ignite, a low-stakes, no-prep pitch competition. You take an idea, talk for a minute about it, answer any questions, and the person with the best pitch wins a gift card! Ignite is like a mini version of other Apex Events. If you already have an idea or business, students can apply to the Startup Hokies Incubator program. Students and teams in the incubator program have the opportunity to apply for Apex Center equity-free seed grants and awards. Just last year, a total of $80k was awarded to students!

So, you have your million-dollar idea, you’ve been accepted into the incubator; what’s next?

Perhaps the most important part of entrepreneurship, besides your idea, is pitching! Pitching your idea is how you get the funding needed to bring an idea from dream to “do”. Apex internally hosts pitch competitions, like Kickstart VT, for funding from Apex, but beyond that, many entrepreneurs pitch at national pitch competitions, securing the funding to actually bring ideas to life.

An example of an idea that was brought to life with the help of Apex is sensitivity.ai, a system that evaluates and predicts online sentiments.

Founded by Rowan Martnishn from the College  of Science and Vishal Green from the College of Engineering, sentivity.ai started their pitch journey at a Kickstart VT event, earning an award of $250. Sentivity.ai has now been selected to pitch at the ACC InVenture Prize Competition and the Rice Business Plan Competition, two of the most prestigious student pitch competitions. 

We often treat the idea of an inventor as a historical relic, but the era of the ‘Career Inventor’ isn’t over; it’s just been upgraded. 

Engineering entrepreneurship is perhaps the most robust and accessible it has ever been, especially to Virginia Tech students. The Apex Center bridges the gap between engineering ideas and entrepreneurship, creating a clear roadmap for mass-market success. If you have an idea floating around your head or want to get started with entrepreneurship, I highly recommend checking the Apex Center out. Who knows? Maybe I’ll be reading about you and your company next!