CLAS students make their mark in Enterprise Leadership as IdeaStorm winners

The winners of this year’s annual JPEC student innovation competition are overwhelmingly made up of students from the UI College of Liberal Arts and Sciences.
Friday, October 21, 2022

By Charlotte Brookins 

A dozen students enrolled in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences at Iowa won a recent innovation competition hosted by the John Pappajohn Entrepreneurial Center.  

Thirty-two students gathered at the IMU to put their innovation skills to the test as part of the IdeaStorm competition, presented by the John Pappajohn Entrepreneurial Center in September.  

From a one-stop shop wedding venue to a mobile curated thrift store, participants dreamed up and presented unique ideas to solve a problem. Winners of the competition are awarded cash prizes of varying amounts that can be used to expand their ideas — taking them from imagination to reality. 

Celia Hernandez
Celia Hernandez

An incredible 12 out of the 15 winners were CLAS students, each sporting unique ideas for inventions intent on improving one area or another.  

Third-year Enterprise Leadership and Latino Studies student Celia Hernandez was the grand prize in the Common Good category. Her video call translating app won a $500 prize. 

“The idea I pitched is named Translate-It-Live. It is a videocall translating app that is designed for non-native language speakers to have a reliable place to seek translating services,” Hernandez says.  

Hernandez has big ideas for next steps with her application.  

“I am planning on taking my idea further. I hope to collaborate with an app designer to begin the first steps of developing the Translate-It-Live app,” she explains.  

The categories dominated by CLAS students were: Creative Concepts, Common Good, Consumer Solutions, People’s Choice Award, Sports Solutions, and the Spirit Award.  

For more information, and a full list of the winners, visit the JPEC website. 

The University of Iowa College of Liberal Arts and Sciences offers about 70 majors across the humanities; fine, performing and literary arts; natural and mathematical sciences; social and behavioral sciences; and communication disciplines. About 15,000 undergraduate and nearly 2,000 graduate students study each year in the college’s 37 departments, led by faculty at the forefront of teaching and research in their disciplines. The college teaches all Iowa undergraduates through the college's general education program, CLAS CORE. About 80 percent of all Iowa undergraduates begin their academic journey in CLAS. The college confers about 60 percent of the university's bachelor's degrees each academic year.