The 2017 Design for Delight Innovation Challenge will be held Wednesday in the Joan C. Edwards Performing Arts Center. West Virginia natives Jennifer Garner and Chad Pennington, and Marshall alumnus Brad Smith will be on the judge’s table for the event, which will begin at 5 p.m.

Ben Eng, assistant professor of marketing in the Lewis College of Business, said the event started with a conversation between President Jerry Gilbert and Brad Smith, CEO of Intuit and Marshall alumnus.

“They spoke about Marshall and Intuit doing something together that would benefit our students as well as our community,” Eng said.

“Around the same time that conversation was happening, our recent graduate and my former student Izzy, Isabelle, Rogner started working at Intuit in their corporate social responsibility office,” Eng said. “She contacted me and Dean (Robert) Simpson and the three of us started collaborating on ways to realize President Gilbert and Brad’s vision.”

Eng said the Design for Delight event took on a lot of different shapes and sizes as they developed it, but they never lost focus of Gilbert’s and Brad’s original purpose of bettering the students’ and community members’ lives.

“Design for Delight is a process for innovation used by Intuit employees,” said Ginny Painter,

senior vice president for Communications and Marketing at Marshall.

Painter said the goal of the challenge is to build the participants’ abilities to learn innovation techniques and impact the community and world.

“In a nutshell, the Design for Delight Innovation Challenge is a project where approximately 40 of our students from across campus are divided up into seven teams and learn Intuit’s innovation process,” Eng said.

“They then apply that process to solve West Virginia’s biggest challenges, which are lowering the impact of substance abuse, improving youth education and improving technology. They’ll present their solutions at the Innovating for Impact finale,” Eng said.

Eng said they wanted it to be a true representation of all the undergraduate students on campus, so they worked with deans from seven colleges to select the students and faculty who would participate in Design for Delight.

“The great people at Intuit have been the driving force behind organizing this project,” Eng said. “I can’t tell you how hard they are working and how much they care about providing our students with this opportunity. We, as a university, are incredibly lucky for their involvement.”

Eng said the Innovating for Impact finale will have a TED Talk feel to it.

“It’ll be modern, intellectually stimulating, but also high energy and approachable all at the same time,” Eng said. “Marshall’s brightest students will present their solutions to West Virginia’s biggest challenges to a panel of judges. And they aren’t just any panel of judges. It’s Brad Smith, Chad Pennington and Jennifer Garner. I really can’t put it any other way than this. It’s a historical event for our university, our city and our state.”

Eng said Garner, Pennington, and Smith will listen to each of the seven teams’ solutions and then ask them any question they might have for them.

“After that, they’ll determine which team presented the best solution for each of the three challenges. I should also add that Brad is serving double-duty. He’s not only one of the judges, but he’ll also be the emcee,” Eng said.

Eng said the prize for the three winning teams will be a trip to the Intuit campus in Silicon Valley for a couple days.

“While there, the students will continue to flesh out their solutions with Intuit employees. They’ll eat lunch and meet Intuit employees that are in their field of interest,” Eng said. “Intuit will also be allowing the students to choose from an array of Intuit tutorials and workshops that teach them some of their processes and best practices. It’ll be a working trip for the students, but the working trip of a lifetime.”

Alexia Lilly can be contacted at [email protected].