Pioneer Weekend

In 2014, I helped organize the first Pioneer Weekend—an innovation competition at Grinnell College that now happens twice a year. It’s a three-day competition, sponsored by the Wilson Center for Innovation and Leadership.

The objective of Pioneer Weekend is to bring together student innovators from different backgrounds and varied skillsets to work together in teams of 3-6 people to solve real problems and complete a prototype of an idea that they come up with at the event.

In October 2016, I was invited to speak about Pioneer Weekend at the Grinnell CS Affinity Reunion, as one of the most successful student initiatives.

How does it work?

During the weekend students work on a proposal that consists of:

1. Identifying the target market
   
2. Outlining a business and strategy plan 
   
3. Prototyping an MVP
   

Throughout the event, students have access to industry experts to guide, mentor and advise them. At the end of the weekend, all groups pitch their projects and get final feedback on the viability of their idea and the top three ideas and prototypes win cash prizes.

How it started?

In the spring of 2014, a group of five young entrepreneurial spirits got together and organized Grinnell's first Pioneer Weekend. We were Maijid Moujaled (14), Kevin Charette (15), Nathalie Ford (15), Ham Serunjogi (16) and me (15).

We were particularly inspired by the emergence of Hackathons and Startup Weekends, and a growing interest in entrepreneurship worldwide.

We attended a few ourselves and loved the energy, innovation and collaborative spirit we experienced. On top of that, we thought that there was a whole lot of talent at Grinnell, that could be put to good use.

I took care of the event’s digital and visual identity—the logo, website, flyers and the T-shirt, and I communicated the event to the Grinnell community and nearby colleges and universities.

Maijid and Kevin cold-called a couple of close-by Grinnell alumni and Des Moines startup entrepreneurs to recruit them as judges and mentors. 

Ham and Nathalie managed the logistics.  

After all of that was ready to go, we looked for sponsors. In hindsight, we probably should have done that earlier—you live and you learn. We negotiated a reasonable split of financial responsibilities between Grinnell AppDev and the Wilson Center for Innovation and Leadership.

The turnout at the first Pioneer Weekend was bigger than expected. We started the weekend with ~40 people and on the last day, six teams pitched their ideas to the judges. Due to the overall success of the event, it now happens twice a year and is fully sponsored by the Wilson Center.

In 2014, the winners ware Justice Served and their well crafted and presented business plan.

How it’s evolved?

Even though Grinnell College was a bit skeptical about the event at first, it has now adopted the event as its own.

Pioneer Weekend now has a dedicated website and facebook page. There are more people involved, and it’s even a prominently featured on the Grinnell College website. Last but not least, the prizes have improved as well!

Why Pioneer Weekend?

We didn’t want to give the event the generic Startup Weekend name, but we still wanted a name that would ring of innovation, creativity, collaboration and entrepreneurship. Since the school’s mascot is the Pioneer naming it Pioneer Weekend was a no-brainer.