By DAVID DUPONT
BG Independent News
The Bowling Green State University entrepreneurship program wants to help people bring “everyday eureka moments” to market.
Brian Sokol, the associate director of the Paul J. Hooker Entrepreneur Center for Entrepreneurial Leadership, explained that he’s the kind of guy who walks into the dining room at Stone Ridge Golf Club, looks up, and asks “who thought to put curtains on the ceiling.”
Someone came up with that idea, and now draped curtain-like material decorate all kinds of room.
Sokol and Kirk Kern, the Hooker Center director, were the guest speakers at the Bowling Green Chamber of Commerce’s Mid-Year Meeting and Awards Program Wednesday.
Sokol has had his own eureka moments — a pillow designed with the Cleveland Clinic to address “technology neck” and Rain-X windshield wiper blades among them. From automotive products — he’s a former president of Pennzoil — to drugs, he has a number of patents to his name.
And now he has returned to his alma mater to help others realize the thrill and profit from their innovations.
The Hooker Center is offering its services not just to students but to alumni and area businesses.
Students in classes taught by Kern helped local firm Betco figure out why students in elementary schools weren’t using their hand sanitizers.
“Too tall, too noisy, too smelly,” was the opinion of the students. So product has been refined.
Hooker, another BGSU graduate and successful entrepreneur, worked with the center to try to figure out how to raise money to support Rally Cap Sports camps. The camps, one of which is offered in Bowling Green, make sports activities available to young people with a range of special needs.
The result was a sports drink specifically for children. Proceeds from selling the drink will support Rally Cap.
The center is also working with CompliGlobe, a company run by another BGSU graduate, to develop a Turbo Tax type product that helps companies doing business internationally keep track of global regulations.
The center also presents The Hatch, based on the TV show “The Shark Tank,” that helps students work on their own every day eureka moments.
The program was started eight years ago, Kern said. Then it was held in Olscamp Hall, and they expected 300 people to attend. It drew twice that many. This past April, 3,000 people came to the Stroh Center to watch eight young entrepreneurs present their ideas to a panel of investors.
Sokol has been a member of that panel since the beginning.
Kern said it’s not just the competitors on stage who benefit from The Hatch. More than 100 others submit ideas, and the center helps them develop their products to the next level.
The center is a key part of entrepreneurship studies at BGSU. The university offers a minor in entrepreneurship that’s open to all students, regardless of their majors.
In fall, the minor will offer 17 seven-week courses, and immerse students in entrepreneurship.
It offers two tracks, Kern said. One is for students interested in starting their own businesses and one for those interested in working within innovative firms.
Right now the center is located in room 109 of the College of Business.
Come August 2020, the college of business will move to its new home, the Maurer Center, now under construction.
The Maurer Center incorporates Hanna Hall, and includes a three-story addition twice the size of the original building.
The goal, Kern said, is to emulate the kind of environment students will work I once they graduate.
