The Veterinary Entrepreneurship Academy is accepting entries for Season 4 of The Idea Competition, which will award $17,500 to students who design solutions for improving the delivery of veterinary health care.
Applications will be accepted through July 15 at https://vea.vet/the-idea. The winners will be chosen from finalists presenting their ideas in March 2020 at the Student American Veterinary Medical Association Symposium.
Season 3 awarded three prizes courtesy of Merck Animal Health:
- $10,000 to Texas A&M University’s Brianna Boyle and Stephanie Young for SkyPaws, a wireless pet monitoring device.
- $5,000 to Cornell University’s ParaSIGHT team for a real-time parasite identification smartphone app.
- $2,500 to Cornell’s Jon Lou and Kirk Bradtmiller for their BigFoot pressure bag pump attachment.
“Our mission is to have the largest positive impact on improving the delivery of veterinary health care by building the capacity for entrepreneurship and innovation from within the profession,” said Rob Trimble, director of the Veterinary Entrepreneurship Academy. “Students are incredibly creative and often have transformative ideas about the future of veterinary medicine. Yet many lack the confidence, resources, education and mentorship that’s needed to turn those ideas into reality.”
Today’s Veterinary Business columnist Aaron Massecar, Ph.D., assisted Season 3 semifinalists with fine-tuning their ideas.
“It’s amazing to work with these students,” said Dr. Massecar, assistant director of Colorado State University’s Translational Medicine Institute. “Despite how busy they are with their classes and training, they not only have time to devote to their area of passion, but most of them say that their grades actually improve because they have this creative outlet.”
VetPrep, which helps students prepare for the North American Veterinary Licensing Examination, is a founding partner of The Idea Competition.