When we think of sports, we think of teamwork, competition, and overcoming challenges. So, it only makes sense for students to combine these attributes to excel in a fast-paced environment simulating the “real world” of sports business work place.
The innovation sprint unites students from across campus to combine their collaborative, problem-solving, educational, and personal skills to develop ideas—pushing the sports fan experience beyond the current day reality.
Description of the video:
David Pierce, Ph.D.: The 24-Hour Challenge, hosted by the Sport Innovation Institute, was a really unique way for students here at IUPUI to get experience thinking big, thinking creatively, to solve a key problem in the sport industry. So students were able to engage, not only with each other, but also with our key industry partners here in Indianapolis; the NCAA, the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, and the Indiana Pacers. So the 24-Hour Challenge is definitely a unique opportunity for students. You know, it’s not your traditional lecture and exam-type environment, so it gets students not only working in interdisciplinary teams, but also thinking creatively and thinking big and thinking from an innovative perspective. So after students had kind of gone through their first and second iteration of their ideas, they got the opportunity to go to an Indiana Pacers game, which really served as kind of a living, learning laboratory for what their ideas might actually look like if they were to be implemented. So they were able to kind of observe fans and how they engage with the experience and think about what their innovative idea would look and feel and smell and be if it were to happen. Really the students getting down to the nitty-gritty of preparing their one page paper and also their 5-minute pitch that they gave to a panel of judges, then awarding the scholarship money based on the quality of those proposals.
