Red Bull Basement holds “Innovate New Haven” event to spark student interest in global innovation competition
Local Red Bull event offers entrepreneurship workshops, medical technology lectures and network opportunities to area college students, encourages applications to company’s international entrepreneurship challenge
Anika Seth, Contributing Photographer
On Oct. 13, Red Bull Basement, a global innovation competition geared toward students 18 and older, held an event called “Innovate New Haven” at District Cowork on 470 James St.
The New Haven event focused primarily on the medical technology industry. Programming included entrepreneurship workshops and a lecture series with two primary speakers: Mostafa Analoui, the executive director of UConn Venture Development, and Ted Dinsmore, president of technology company SphereGen.
“There is a misconception that entrepreneurship means a start-up,” Analoui said during his talk. “Entrepreneurship is a way of thinking and of problem-solving… You could be an entrepreneur running a corporation, or you could be an entrepreneur running a small shop.”
Red Bull Basement is an international competition that aims to encourage students to develop innovative “tech-driven ideas” that would positively impact the world, according to marketing documents. One idea per country will be awarded a “fully customized mentorship package,” which includes sufficient funding to develop and implement the proposed idea.
Nick Heymann ’24, Red Bull’s student brand manager at Yale, explained that the annual program is open to students all over the world and encourages submissions at all levels of the design process, not just fully developed ideas.
Red Bull offered its New Haven event in partnership with Intel Next Unit of Computing and information technology company Nippon Telegraph and Telephone. Over 40 employees, interested community members and local students — including those from Yale — attended the three-hour session.
During his talk, Dinsmore offered a live demonstration of his work applying mixed reality technology to medical diagnostic systems. He explained that advanced three-dimensional visualization tools like his can help reduce the amount of time that medical professionals spend staring at scans and increase their diagnostic efficiency and accuracy.
Dinsmore also offered experience-based advice to budding entrepreneurs in the audience: “Though it may seem counterintuitive,” he said, “don’t go ask for money until you have a product and some buy-in into your product.”
After Disnmore and Analoui’s talks, participants had the opportunity to ask the presenting entrepreneurs questions and interact with each other in a designated networking period.
Among the evening’s attendees was Stella Gray ’24, a member of the Yale Entrepreneurial Society.
“As an entrepreneur myself, I’m grateful to have the opportunity to learn from successful innovators as they share their guidance and advice,” Gray wrote in a text to the News. “A vibrant, successful, and creative company like Red Bull has the ability to help students realize their full potential.”
The overall competition timeline spans from Sept. 1 to Dec. 15 and involves six components: applications, community shout-outs, idea selection, idea development, a conference for global finalists and a final pitch.
The application window is open until Oct. 24, with students eligible to apply either as individuals or pairs. The application includes a paragraph describing their idea and a 30-60 second video explaining the concept in more depth.
During the application window, community members can comment on existing submissions. These shout-outs, as the Red Bull Basement website calls them, are visible only to the students receiving each comment, not the general public. At the end of the application period, however, the competition will release the total number of shout-outs that each group received, and those metrics will be considered as part of the selection process.
In addition to the total number of shout-outs, local judges will also evaluate each idea for its feasibility, impact and creativity while selecting finalists. The selection process is scheduled to end on Nov. 2.
Finalists then have until Dec. 2 to flesh out and implement their ideas, with access to Red Bull Basement-provided resources such as a workspace, one-on-one mentorship and global networking opportunities.
After the development period, students engage in the Global Final: a three-day series of workshops and mentorship sessions, among other programming. The Global Final concludes with teams presenting their work to an international panel of judges in the Final Pitch, after which one team will receive the title of Global Winner 2021.
Red Bull Basement has been hosting this competition since 2018.
