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Words of Inspiration

"There are no secrets to success, only trying hard. There are no quick soltions, only those that stimulate the thinking and create a fervor to be solved by the curious. It is our hope to simply plant the seed that says,
'You can...'"

— Carson Chen,
Co-Founder & President

"The thing that makes this endeavor exciting is seeing our successful alumni philanthropically give back and encourage the innovative energies of our current students."

— Mike Cirovic,
Co-founder

"The idea here is to not only fund exciting and new ideas and projects, but help to develop them for the financial benefit of all involved. All the projects successfully developed will make money for the individual student(s), for the industry sponsor, for the University and for IQ. The best part is that all the money earned by IQ will be turned around to fund additional projects or give back to the academic programs of the university."

— Mike Cirovic,
Co-founder

"Innovation! It's exciting. It's captivating. Innovation can propel ventures like nothing else. Successful ventures create a powerful opportunity to give back -- to give back to society and to give back to the university. Consider: Innovation's noble quest is to give back."

— Rich Boberg,
Co-Founder & Vice President

"I'm continually amazed at how smart, clever and thorough the Cal Poly student projects are."

— Laura Pickering,
Advisory Board

"Whatever your idea, stick with it. I've seen entrepreneurs get turned down time and again. But, they never gave up, they continued in pursuit and were ultimately rewarded with success."

— Bob Barron,
Advisory Board

"The ability to innovate is not innate, it is an attitude, a state of mind. The mission of the Innovation Quest is to nurture the insightfulness of creativity, with a mindfulness toward giving back. Only in this way, we create and perpetuate opportunities for a caring tomorrow."

— Carson Chen,
Co-Founder & President

"From concept to realizing a commercial product is a disciplined form of chaotic creativity. It is the nature of break throughs and profound market trends."

— Carson Chen,
Co-Founder & President

"...Learn by doing...Give back by creating..."

— Carson Chen,
Co-Founder & President

"The greatest gift one can bestow upon another is not the way of success but the opportunity, the doing, the creating and success's living journey. Even greater is the gift of giving back, one of philanthropy, for the benefit of the opportunity for our younger generation to innovate in perpetuity."

— Carson Chen,
Co-Founder & President

"As a country with many adversaries we are constantly challenged with new threats and many of them can mean the difference between life and death, winning or loosing and dealing with the consequences of conflict. Innovation is on constant demand to take on such problems as detecting and neutralizing improvised explosive devices; the detection of terrorist threats; the detection of weapons of mass destruction; the protection of our SCADA systems and so forth. Our National Security is an important element to our future quality of life. There is a continuing need for new and innovative solutions to its many problems."

— Jon Monett,
CEO of Telemus

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What is the big deal?

It is an unprecedented opportunity and for students and faculty alike to have no-strings-attached, funding and assistance for all of those great ideas you've had in mind, but did not know what to do next, or whether they were even feasible...