Volume 1 Number 7 | pdb2b.com

For a shot at $10,000 in case prizes, 10 semifinalists pitched their business ideas in the finale of the 10th annual Pee Dee Idea Challenge on April 1.

In what can be described as a Shark Tank for students from area colleges, Boyd Rankin of Coker University took first place and $3,600 for his idea: LaxReShot, an automatic ball return system designed to minimize downtime in lacrosse practice.

The Pee Dee Idea Challenge started out as the kernel of an idea in spring 2016, according to the event’s co-founder and organizer, Andrew Burkemper, director of the Center for Leadership and Entrepreneurship, and associate professor of business at Coker University. Burkemper said in an email, “It’s kind of funny that the original idea started at a 4-year-old’s birthday party at Chick-fil-A.”

Burkemper said the party’s host had introduced him to Joe Aniello, then-professor of management at Francis Marion University, where he had already been working on entrepreneurship initiatives.

“Joe and I hit it off right away and decided we’d find a way to have our universities collaborate together for the good of our students,” Burkemper said. “As we brainstormed different ideas through the summer, we kept coming back to an interdisciplinary business idea framework that would create a friendly competition across university lines and ideally grow across the region over time.”

Idea Challenge co-founder Aniello is now professor emeritus of management of the Francis Marion University School of Business, having retired in 2024. “Andy and I were interested in collaborating on something that was bigger than our respective universities; that’s unusual,” Aniello said in a phone interview. “A lot of times professors can be territorial. They like to stick to their own discipline, and they’re protective of it, for good reason.

“We believed this had the potential to be something special, something that was bigger than the both of us. We said, ‘Hey let's do something big here.’”

The two managed to obtain sponsorships from The Clouse-Elrod Foundation Inc. and the Wells Fargo Foundation and launched the Pee Dee Idea Challenge for the spring 2017 semester.

At the beginning, it was a collaboration between Coker and Francis Marion with 14 entries from 31 students competing for $5,000. Now, the program has expanded to include participation from Coastal Carolina University, Florence-Darlington Technical College and Northeastern Technical College.

This year’s Challenge drew 118 entries, tying the record set last year, from hundreds of students, all competing for $10,000 in prizes.

While fielding questions from judges during the final round, which took place over a Zoom call, Rankin said that, though he did not have a working prototype model for the LaxReShot, he planned to start by filing for a patent and looking into funding for the development of a prototype. He said he expects it would cost $300 to produce one machine that he could sell for $500-$600.

Coming in second place and receiving a $2,400 prize was Eco Shelf, an idea for a smart device that tracks freshness of foods in your refrigerator. Eco Shelf was conceived by Michaela Nemerow and Devin McGowan of Coastal Carolina.

Coming in third and receiving a $1100 prize was MeowMetrics by Willow DiGravio, Coastal Carolina. MeowMetrics is an idea for a cat collar that monitors the wearer’s health and activity. DiGravio also received the Steven Weingartner audience choice award of $250.

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