1. PSU Sparkplug
Igniting student ideas
Matthew Poese and Liz Kisenwether
Penn State University’s Engineering Leadership and
Entrepreneurship Programs

2. Problem
• Student groups have good ideas
– rarely move them forward
– meager resources for parts to build prototypes
Solution
• A funding platform to capitalize an idea
– students articulate a value proposition
– students enlist stakeholders
– stakeholders back the project
• typical contribution is $5-$50

3. SparkPlug
• Give a $500 grant to student groups
– groups mount a crowd-sourced funding drive
• Kickstarter, Indie-Go-Go
– faculty advisor keeps them on track
– use the grant to:
• buy materials for prototype
• shoot a video
• buy advertisement
• get web hosting space

4. Application
• Short, simple
• Evaluate the value proposition
– is it suited for Kickstarter or similar?
– does it appear to have a market?
• ask for a quick market survey as first step
• Evaluate the functionality
– Students have big dreams
– Try to fund reasonable pieces of the dream

5. SmartPurse
• An active indiegogo campaign
• Flex-funding
– not an all-or-nothing deal
– Goal is $5k
• Established new relationship
with a manufacturer near PSU
• Used her SparkPlug grant to
buy advertising in Vogue to
coincide with indiegogo
campaign
• Dreams of raising $100k with
the campaign
• From an educational
standpoint, already a success

6. PSU Ecosystem
Sequence of courses that focus on idea
generation/evaluation
Get market reaction using SparkPlug
Form a company in Lion Launch Pad

7. Other Connectivity
• SparkPlug team sponsors an engineering
senior design team
– Business students have good idea
– hack a prototype
– use engineering senior design team to:
• clean up prototype
• create a design-for-manufacture

8. Clipboard+

9. What we’ve seen
• Seeding student ideas leads to:
– Increased collaboration between students of
many disciplines
– Increased self-efficacy
– Like an internship:
• experience non-academic lessons
– Order fulfillment
– Customer service
– Inventory management
– Production problems