Left to Right: Frank Salcie, Dean Paul Zavracky, Tucker Marion and Jessica Chin
A world of text messaging, text alerts and high tech employees on Blackberries and iPhones running around Boston, MA in pursuit of “Quest for Innovation”. This high-tech scavenger hunt focused on Boston’s history and leadership as a city of innovation and entrepreneurship. Not only is Boston the home to the Red Sox, Celtics, and Patriots, but it is also a leader in spurring new ideas, products and technological entrepreneurship.
My team consisted of the Dean and a Professor from Northeastern’s School of Technological Entrepreneurship (STE), a current STE student, a Northeastern MBA student and myself.
This event was one of the first where you saw executives running around the city of Boston texting clues and answers as fast as they can. It was a great experience to learn a little bit about a city that is so rich in history and firsts. Innovation comes in many different forms. For example, the first company to sell mutual funds to the public or the first specific gene discovered to be useful to cancer research. Boston was also home of the inception of Aldo Shoe Co. and a major textile industry.
The Quest for Innovation (http://www.questforinnovation.com) , sponsored by venture capital groups, corporate America, and entrepreneurship foundations brought together C-levels, professors, students, start-ups, engineer, and entrepreneurs to “solve challenges linked to landmark locations in [Boston’s] history for innovation”. Clues and answers were sent via text messages using a local start-up’s gaming platform SCVNGR. The score was kept based on the timeliness of the answers, the number of correct answers and the use of hints and skips.
All proceeds went to local youth programs and universities to encourage engineering, new ideas, and entrepreneurship. Nicely put by SCVNGR’s CEO, it’s not about the companies involved but “bring cool people together to do good things”.
By Jessica Chin, Flashpoint Development’s Product Development Engineer
