Ideas Are Increasingly Sophisticated<\/strong><\/p>\niQ participants have created businesses that address everything from medical innovation to healthier fish food, unique athletic equipment to cancer treatments, and artificial limbs to healthy beverages.<\/p>\n
Last year, Raina Jain ’24 (BUS), then a freshman, won first place with her QueenBee \u00a0immune-support supplement. Alumni Tim Krupski ’15 (ENG) and Jeremy Bronen ’20 (ENG) took second place with Sedentary Medical Solutions, a toilet-lift assistance product for elderly or disabled people. And Jake Winter ’22 (ENG) and Massyl Mallem ’23 (ENG) took third place for Patent Plus, an artificial intelligence-driven software tool that helps inventors more easily determine if their invention is unique.<\/p>\n
\u201cInnovation Quest has been formulated specifically for students at UConn,\u2019\u2019 Dino says. \u201cWe welcome students with open arms either because they have an idea that they want to move forward or because they\u2019d like the opportunity to work with other like-minded, high-achieving people.\u2019\u2019<\/p>\n
\u201cThe ideas now are more sophisticated than they\u2019ve ever been,\u2019\u2019 Dino says. \u201cOur program doesn\u2019t hand out a magic formula that automatically makes you become a successful entrepreneur. When students have a deep-rooted conviction that this is what they want, we let them know that we\u2019ll go on the journey with them and accompany them the whole way.\u2019\u2019<\/p>\n
The iQ program emphasizes three critical factors: creativity, innovation, and entrepreneurial thinking, says Fox, who has worked as a top executive at Apple and Cisco.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhether you start a company or not, these skills are invaluable in the workplace,\u2019\u2019 Fox says. \u201cWe teach opportunity. We\u2019ll push you to innovate, to learn, and to compete.\u2019\u2019<\/p>\n
Top-Notch Mentors Shape Students\u2019 Experience<\/strong><\/p>\nOne of the highlights of the program is its vast pool of business mentors, Fox says. In the last decade, scores of business experts have coached UConn\u2019s iQ students and the advice they have offered has been invaluable, Fox says.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur mentors have been a deep and valuable resource for students to fill the gap in skill sets and expertise,\u2019\u2019 Dino says. \u201cNo mentor is in it for their own financial benefit, other than the excitement they get from working with the best and brightest. They want to help move ideas forward and provide resources that they wish they had as students and young entrepreneurs. The program is built on the shoulders of our mentors, that\u2019s where the horsepower is.\u2019\u2019<\/p>\n
Program Benefits Both Our Students and Our State<\/strong><\/p>\nFox learned of the iQ program when he served on the President\u2019s Advisory Board at Cal Poly and brought the program to UConn. In a typical year, hundreds of students participate. But beyond helping individual students, its success established entrepreneurship as a priority at UConn.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s been very rewarding to watch this grow. It started with an idea and just took off. Last year was a huge milestone and we celebrated a decade of success,\u2019\u2019 Fox says. \u201cWe\u2019ve had some 700 teams participate in iQ since its inception and that means thousands of students have raised their hands to say they want to explore entrepreneurship. We should celebrate that.\u2019\u2019<\/p>\n
\u201cUltimately the biggest winner from this competition is the entire State of Connecticut,\u2019\u2019 Fox says. \u201cI graduated from UConn in 1980 and was an entrepreneur, co-owning my own computer store. Connecticut was founded on entrepreneurship and innovation, and it is very much alive here today.\u2019\u2019<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The 2021 iQ winner, Raina Jain, received a $15,000 check in support of her startup, The QueenBee, an all-natural, organic, immune-support beverage infused with honeybee products<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":121,"featured_media":181386,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_crdt_document":"","wds_primary_category":0,"wds_primary_series":0,"wds_primary_attribution":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[147,1731,2256,1862,2235,2234],"tags":[],"magazine-issues":[],"coauthors":[2105],"class_list":["post-181384","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-alumni","category-entrepreneurship","category-innovation","category-busn","category-today-homepage","category-university-life"],"pp_statuses_selecting_workflow":false,"pp_workflow_action":"current","pp_status_selection":"publish","acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-04-25 23:39:31","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/181384","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/users\/121"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=181384"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/181384\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":181392,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/181384\/revisions\/181392"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media\/181386"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=181384"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=181384"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=181384"},{"taxonomy":"magazine-issue","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/magazine-issues?post=181384"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=181384"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}