The 2016 IIE Great Lakes Regional Conference, hosted at Wayne State University, brought together 330

students from 12 different universities. The theme for the conference was Venture IIE: Engineering

Based Entrepreneurs, The New Generation. During the weekend, we wanted students to uncover the

importance of Entrepreneurship and how they can maximize their potential as an Entrepreneurial

Engineer. The conference was a great opportunity for students to learn more about entrepreneurship

through collaboration, creativity and inspiration. Topics for the sessions included social media

marketing, competitive strategies for start-ups, and from idea to launch. Jim Anderson, founder of

Urban Science, presented the keynote address. He spoke about his experience as an entrepreneurial

engineer and transforming analytics to profits.

On Saturday, we hosted three different student competitions. Our first competition was Shark Tank. For

the Shark Tank competition, the attendees competed for the best original idea or invention. The

attendees had around 30 minutes at the beginning of the competition to prepare a pitch for the judges.

The judging criteria concentrated on the most innovative idea, the ability to commercialization and its

competitive edge.

For the technical paper competition students had the opportunity to present a project they worked on

for a course, research or internship. The winning paper was “Minimizing Wait Time in the Emergency

Room” by Salman Ammoun from Wayne State University.

Throughout the conference, we asked students to share their photos by posting them to twitter using

the hashtag #VentureIE. Here is a look back at some of the posts.