The venues and schedule for the 2023 Stevens Innovation Expo, the annual showcase of research, design, and entrepreneurship spanning all University schools and disciplines, have been announced.
This year’s Expo, which will take place on Friday, April 28, will be the first one to feature the new University Center Complex as a venue since it opened last spring. According to the full schedule, most of the day will be centered around the Babbio Center, Canavan Arena, and UCC Tech Flex Auditorium.
The day will begin at 9:30 a.m. with a continental breakfast spread in the Babbio Center Atrium. Following the breakfast will be a 15-minute ceremonial welcome to the Expo, which will lead to the first events of the day.
Returning features include the Gallois Autonomous Robot Competition, the Thomas H. Scholl Lecture by Visiting Entrepreneurs, and the Ansary Entrepreneurship Competition. The College of Arts and Letters Concert, a new addition to last year’s show, is also back after receiving highly positive feedback, according to Stevens.
The Thomas H. Scholl Lecture by Visiting Entrepreneurs will take place in Babbio Center Room 122 from 10:15 to 11:15 a.m. The lecture series is a long-running staple of the Innovation Expo that features talks on diverse topics by distinguished entrepreneurs and executives, most of whom are Stevens alumni. Speakers in the last few years have included Fortune 100 CEO Ann Fandozzi of the class of 1993, internet pioneer and mobile technologies expert Bill Barhydt of the class of 1990, and medical venture capital executive John Nehra.
Following the lecture will be the College of Arts and Letter Concert, which is styled this year as “A Celebration of Seniors Live Concert,” starting at 11:30 a.m. and lasting until 12:30 p.m. The concert will feature performances from senior undergraduate acts.
Tying in with the Ansary Entrepreneurship Competition, senior projects will be on display from noon to 12:45 p.m. in various venues across campus according to school. The competition will then take place from 3:00 to 4:30 p.m. in DeBaun Auditorium.
Another long-running tradition of the Expo, the Ansary Entrepreneurship Competition tasks teams of senior students with framing their design projects as potential businesses and making elevator pitches for them to a panel of judges. An elevator pitch is a bid for an investor’s support short enough to be made in an elevator ride. In a series of three rounds, dozens of teams will compete and be judged until there are only three winners remaining, who will be announced on the day of the Expo. At last year’s event, the winners received over $17,000 dollars combined for such projects as a real-time ASL translator, a novel water filtration method, and a matrix decomposition algorithm.
The day will wind to a close with a networking reception period, to be held in the Babbio Center Atrium and on the adjacent East Patio.
Stevens recommends attendees use the schedule to plan for the Expo and select events most interesting and relevant to them. The University will also be revealing more information about the Expo, including the full speaker lineup and additional unannounced venue information, in the coming weeks, so all those interested in seeing what the Expo has to offer should monitor Stevens releases, including the Expo’s page, to keep up to date.
