Innovation Center Making an Impact

BY DANIELLE ERTLE
SC Staff Writer

A creative mind comes with great rewards, and the Innovation Center helps ESU students’ ideas come to life.

Chris Landino, the Research and Economic Development Coordinator, helps students of all majors from Business, Biology, Communications Studies, and Art and Design to expanding on their ideas, and to land internships.

Besides helping students gain experience in their field, Landino also runs a few projects such as “Be A Commerical Success” which is based on producing a contest for two different 30 second commercials.

One is produced around PASSHE and the other is for a company called Liquid Fence where students can make a commercial based on their new product called, Eco-Logic.

After completing their commercials, students then present them and can win up to $10,000!

Through these projects, Landino helps spread entrepreneurship throughout the student body and the community.

Through it all can Landino say that he loves his job?

“I love what I do! It’s a fun and fantastic job!” he says.

As a big believer in education, he enjoys helping students with their ideas and brushing up on their “soft skills” such as networking, public speaking, presenting ideas, and talking about ideas with other entrepreneurs from different companies.

By learning all of these skills, students can practice them by meeting with local entrepreneurs who come to the Innovation Center and give them advice on the bad and the good of entrepreneurship.

Also, at least once a week, an Entrepreneur Club of twenty-seven members meet where guest speakers and authors come and talk to the students with their experiences, giving students many ideas of  what to do and what not to do with their ideas.

Through all of these different ways for students to get their creative minds out there, it helps them shift their ideas from their minds, to being presented to companies, and Landino says this helps them by “applying experience to what they’ve learned into the real world.”

He’s right about that one as there have been a few awesome ideas that have been recognized at ESU. Jonathan Weber, an ESU student and founder of eDentified, which is a powerful search engine that creates an individual profile’s internet presence and internet identities through email, username, etc.

Though this idea, he won first-place and $10,000 in PASSHE’s Business Plan Competition. Another ESU student, Melissa Shaw, who received her master’s in biological sciences here, came up with Lyme-Aid, along with Professor Dr. Jane Huffman, a tick testing kit made for both people and pets.

With the successes of these two students, the Innovation Center is one step for other students to bring their ideas to life and experience what it takes to work with other entrepreneur companies.

Email Danielle at:
dertle@live.esu.edu