Engineering X-Celerator

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(Deadline is 11:59pm Nov 30, 2018)

Have you...

• wondered if you could start a company like those Purdue Students did with Froyo Xpress?
• rode on one of those Bird scooters around campus and thought “how could I start a company like this?”
• had an idea for a product but don’t know where to begin in turning it into a business?

What is it?

X-Celerator is an undergraduate summer internship program. Between the end of the spring semester and the beginning of August, participants will learn and apply the necessary skills to develop innovations into commercial realization. Program coordinators will select teams who will be composed of two to five undergraduate and/or graduate students. Each team will focus on a single product idea. Teams will gauge the market need for the product, develop a prototype to meet customer needs, and formulate a business model for launching the product. The end goal is to have the product developed at a sufficient level to be highly competitive and attract funding through programs such as the Burton Morgan Business Model Competition or Elevate Purdue Foundry Fund.

Who can participate?

The program is open to current College of Engineering undergraduate and graduate students. Each intern will receive a $5,000 stipend and a budget for supplies to realize an innovative product prototype. X-Celerator teams will be selected through a two-phase process. Potential teams must register via an online application that provides personal and academic information as well as a short description of their product idea. Registered teams will be invited to submit and present a pitch deck of their business concept and product idea. This also will be an opportunity for each team to introduce itself to the selection committee. Selected teams will be notified before the end of December.

Preparing for Your Internship

X-Celerator teams will meet once a month during the spring semester to develop their technical and business mentoring network, to better understand intellectual property (IP) and campus resources, to engage in makerspaces and the BIDC for prototyping their product concept, and to prepare for the full-time job of the summer internship experience!

Utilizing the Purdue Foundry

X-Celerator teams will participate in the May offering of Firestarter (formerly LaunchBox) as a cohort along with the ASPIRE (Agriculture Soy Product Innovation Realization Entrepreneurship) internship program. Firestarter is a program through the Purdue Foundry that assists students and faculty members in exploring a product’s likelihood of success. After completing Firestarter, X-celerator interns will work on refining their prototype product and refining business models. Interns will be strongly encouraged to fully engage with the networking events and entrepreneurship mentoring services offered by the Foundry throughout the summer.    

Benefits of X-Celerator

Interns will be kept on task through a series of deliverables due throughout the 11-week program and by regular face-to-face meetings with Foundry staff and entrepreneurs-in-residence. This “learning through doing” focus is expected to result in greater mastery of the skills needed for innovative thinking, problem solving, and success in the innovative driven entrepreneurship environment. At the end of the summer, a team and product showcase event will be held for the teams to present their products, business models, and development plans.   

Intellectual property

Per Purdue policy, X-Celerator interns retain ownership of any intellectual property (IP) generated by this program. 

Important Dates

2018-2019

About X-Celerator

The X-Celerator summer internship program is a collaboration of the College of Engineering, Department of Agriculture and Biological Engineering and the Purdue Foundry.