High School Hub City Innovation Cup

  • The JMCSS Innovation Department is excited to partner with the Community Foundation of West Tennessee, United Way of West TN, Union University's McAfee School of Business, and Tennessee College of Applied Technology Jackson (TCAT) to host the annual Hub City Innovation Cup competition for Madison County high school students. The Innovation Cup is a two-day ideation/hackathon pitch competition where teams of 3-5 students work to solve a problem and pitch their solution to a panel of judges.

     

    2024 - 2025 Hub City Innovation Cup (High School Edition)

    • Dates: September 13th from 12:30pm - 7pm and September 14th from 9am - 4:30pm
    • Where: Union University - Harvey Auditorium for the Kick-Off and Presentations; Blasingame Academic Complex (BAC) for team planning
    • Who: Each Madison County high school may send one team of 3-5 students to compete.
    • What: Win cash prizes and scholarships.
    • Team Registration Form Link - https://forms.office.com/r/Av1iaVmCP4
    • Community Partners: Community Foundation of West Tennessee, United Way of West TN, Union University's McAfee School of Business, and Tennessee College of Applied Technology Jackson (TCAT)  

     

    Hub City Innovation Cup Objective: Using the theme, develop a concept/product/idea/service that makes life better in Jackson, TN. The 2024-2025 theme will be announced on Friday, September 13, at the event kickoff meeting. Teams will pitch a 7-minute solution to the theme and have a 3-minute Q&A period with the judges on Saturday. Teams may select how they wish to pitch their solution (example: slide deck, prototype, poster, etc.).

     

    Please contact Dr. Colene Trent (ctrent@uu.edu ), Dr. Teresa McSweeney (tlmcsweeney@jmcss.org), or Dr. Molly Plyler (mmplyler@jmcss.org) if you have any questions.

     

         community foundation logo        United Way logo                 Union logo                TCAT logo 

  • High School Team Registration Form Below

Team Resources for the Hub City Innovation Cup (High School Edition)

  • Brainstorming Techniques: How to Innovate in Groups (video)

    Brainstorming is a good way to come up with a solution or two. As the name suggests, the idea is that you store on the neural pathways through the brain to pick a lot of thoughts quickly and intuitively. It's best to do this with a group of diverse people, so you have lots of different brains to explore. This leads to the creation of more ideas and maybe new solutions. 

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  • How To Come Up With Good Ideas TEDx Talks by Mark Rober (video)

    Mark Rober is a YouTuber, and former NASA Engineer turned Inventor/Entrepreneur. He received his Bachelor’s degree in Mechanical Engineering from BYU and Masters's from USC. He worked at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory for 9 years, 7 of which were spent working on the Curiosity Rover, which is now on Mars. In 2011, he uploaded his Halloween costume to YouTube that featured 2 iPads using a FaceTime chat, so it looked like he had a hole in his body. The video went viral overnight with 3M views, and he decided to start posting monthly videos about creativity, science, and design and now has over 77M total views and 350k subscribers.

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  • How to Win a Pitch Competition (video)

    Teams will pitch your solution to the judges. Not only will you be judged on what your solution is, but also on how you pitch or present your idea to the judges. Watch this video to learn how to win a pitch competition.

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  • How to Use Storytelling in Your Pitch to Investors (video)

    This video aims to break down some of the storytelling techniques to bear in mind when creating a story for your pitch deck presentation. By incorporating these storytelling tips, you will learn how to be a great storyteller.

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  • Hackathons Aren’t Just For Coders Anymore (article & videos)

    At its most basic, a hackathon is an event where people come together to build something, typically software, in the shortest time possible. In the Hub City Innovation Cup, students will work collaboratively using the hackathon format, but without needing to write any code to create a tech product. Instead, you will brainstorm to quickly develop a solution to the Hub City Innovation Cup's theme. The second video embedded in this article shows a college team pitching their idea at a hackathon and completing the judges' Q&A round..

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