This Spring marked the 11th annual DELTA Rx Next Top Entrepreneur Competition (NTEC). Eight teams signed up this year to challenge their innovative abilities through three competitive rounds. The judges, who represented both business and healthcare fields, selected teams to move on from round to round. Each team not only utilized their skills from their various majors, but created unique ideas off of prompts that were presented to them. Though daunting, every individual went into this competition acknowledging that they would come out with more than a possible monetary prize. The goal of NTEC is for competitors to leave with a deeper conviction to communicate effectively, become adaptive problem solvers, and extend abilities as future professionals.
The winners of this year’s competition are as follows:
1st Place Presenters - Jakob Rhodes and Trevor Bridge
2nd Place Presenters - Matt Kent
3rd Place Preseters - Anna Burns, Matt Glasow, Chintan Barot
The competitors offered insight on the benefits NTEC and how it has impacted the way they perceive innovative care.
Trevor Bridge
Participating in the Next Top Entrepreneur Competition these last few years has encouraged me to think critically about the ways we can improve our industry. It is easy to feel that all the good ideas have already been implemented into practice by someone else, but if this competition has taught me anything, it is that there is always a better way to do something or a novel solution to a problem – it just takes time and effort to put it together.
Jakob Rhodes
I hope that experiences like this will give me confidence to pursue my goals of being a high ranking executive who is in charge of both innovation and relaying the need for everyone in my company to want to “create the change”. Some skills that I gained from this competition were oral speaking sills, ability to reduce stress when pressured, utilizing creativity, and focusing on excellent hand motions. I would be thrilled if Drake University offered a class where students could get innovative ideas onto paper where they can be verbalized, criticized, and improved upon more often.
Anna Burns
The best aspect of this competition is presenting in front of current leaders in business and healthcare and hearing their feedback. It was also nice to hear how other students curated creative ideas to tackle current healthcare problems. NTEC really strives to encourage student originality and also gives students real world experience in project management.
Matthew Kent
NTEC allows us to apply the didactic knowledge from our theory courses, as well as the clinical decision-making skills from our practical experiences, and encourages us to think outside the box. One thing I really valued was the opportunity to connect with thought leaders on Drake’s campus and in Iowa healthcare. The competition was structured to challenge us to think about multiple challenges that we would face, and to reflect on our own place in the healthcare field.
Chintan Barot
Entrepreneurship is important to me because it gives me a chance to learn about innovative trends and discover like-minded people. As practice models continue to change and improve patient care, we will be seeing more inter-professional communication. Innovative tools will be developed within the pharmacy and health-care setting to allow for effective and efficient care for the patient. It is important for students to practice entrepreneurship because it allows for innovation and collaboration.
Congratulations to all the participants, judges, and DELTA Rx staff who made this year’s competition such a success!
