Background

InVenture is a student group created by Chris Paquette (B.S. Bioengineering ’12 / MBA ’13) and Russell Drake (B.S. Mechanical Engineering ’12) at the State University of New York at Binghamton. Chartered by the Student Administration in 2011, the purpose of it’s existence is to spur creative, innovative thought through work on engineering challenges posted on www.innocentive.com. These challenges are real world ‘crowd-sourced’ engineering and design opportunities that anyone can work on a solution for. Typically, winning ideas are awarded between $5,000 – $1,000,000  for either a non-exclusive/exclusive licensing of the solution or an entire transfer of the Intellectual Property to the ‘Seeker’.

Challenges are from a wide array of disciplines, ranging anywhere between the hard sciences to business and education. Due to the diversity in topics, InVenture is a interdisciplinary group composed of a variety of majors across all departments at Binghamton University. And the best news is that we need YOU. Every member offers a new perspective, talent, or skill set that can be vital to creating a winning solution. Are you innovative? Do you seek to apply your knowledge and immerse yourself in new opportunities from a variety of unusual fields? Whether you know the answers to these questions or not, you will discover a passion (and possibly an addiction, beware!) for creative thought here at InVenture.

How does it work?

By registering as a new Affiliate or Project Lead, your expertise and interests are entered into our database. As Project Leads come to us with new challenges that they wish to pursue, we match you with them based on their needs and your skills. We give these newly founded “WorkTeams” the resources and backing that they need in order to succeed with their idea and exposing them to faculty and leaders at the Binghamton University and in the Greater Binghamton area.