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In a groundbreaking new partnership, the WVU LaunchLab Network partnered with AlphaLab Gear to hold a pitch competition for WVU students and alumni. The winner of the competition earned a coveted slot in the semi-final selection round for the AlphaLab Gear Hardware Cup, which boasts a $50,000 grand prize.  The Hardware Cup’s goal is “to find and highlight the most promising physical product startups in the nation,” and West Virginia University’s innovations are very promising. 

The WVU LaunchLab was recognized on the global stage as an Outstanding Emerging Entrepreneurship Center at the Global Consortium for Entrepreneurship Center’s annual conference in Chicago, Illinois on Oct. 21.

MORGANTOWN, W.Va. –The WVU LaunchLab hosted back-to-back workshops to support entrepreneurs and innovators across campus who were interested in starting a business or learning about various funding opportunities. Students, faculty, staff and community members attended the discussions to hear firsthand from innovation experts, investors and entrepreneurs what they need to know to potentially move their ideas and discoveries into market. 

MORGANTOWN, WV – The West Virginia University LaunchLab hosted their first annual Manufacturing Day Pitch Competition. Participating students presented a five-minute pitch, highlighting a problem and solution for a physical product that could be manufactured. National Manufacturing Day ® is a celebration of modern manufacturing meant to inspire the next generation of manufacturers and occurs on the first Friday in October. With that thought in mind, it felt like the perfect time to use such an inspiring day as a kick off for this manufacturing focused event.

While most people were using Twitter to tweet about what they had for breakfast in the morning, in 2014 Matt Nelson was using it as a comedic standpoint to share his love of a good joke.  N elson, who moved to Charleston when he was eight-years old, is the founder of two popular Twitter accounts — WeRateDogs and Thoughts of Dog. He was also the first speaker to kick-off WVU Tech's "Start Up Success Story Series" at the Beckley campus. 

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The  West Virginia University  LaunchLab kicked off the 2018 Fall semester with its first Welcome Back Pitch & Showcase. Participating students presented a two-minute pop-up pitch, highlighting a problem and solution that apply to one of  West Virginia Forward’s three main areas of focus: business, education or human capital. Students’ pitches included specific ideas on how we can bring more manufacturing jobs to the state, advance educational opportunities to students to retain talent in West Virginia – particularly among underrepresented populations – and create more jobs.

Dental hygiene students in the West Virginia University (WVU) School of Dentistry have received several prizes for their invention. Samantha Farley and Kristen Hanlan designed a senior capstone project that finished first place in a WVU LaunchLab competition, earning a $1,500 prize. They subsequently pitched the invention to the West Virginia Clinical and Translational Science Institute during its "shark tank" sessions and earned a grand prize of $10,000 to help in the patenting and production process of the equipment. 

Johnson, a mechanical engineering major at Tech, also has a natural inclination toward figuring out how things work and how to make those things work more efficiently. So when he noticed that storing and accessing rifle ammunition in the field was limited, clumsy and cumbersome, he decided to put his skillset to work.

Friday, April 20, 2018

Hundreds of West Virginia University students, faculty and staff from a wide variety of departments and colleges participated in WVU’s inaugural Demo Day, which provided an opportunity for the University to embrace ideas and to celebrate the creative and inventive work that takes place every day on campus.

MORGANTOWN — Service robots, green space development plans, video games and other prototypes were on display across West Virginia University Thursday as part of its inaugural Demo Day.

Displays were set up on the Evansdale and downtown campuses, where visitors passing through could stop and see the designs being pioneered by their classmates. Visitors could even try out prototypes in some cases.