Video: Mississippi State University Students Create Solutions For Nationwide Issues

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STARKVILLE, Miss. (WCBI) — Expensive emergency room visits rob consumers of billions of health care dollars each year. Families often struggle to find affordable clothing. They are problems facing many rural areas and the nation’s poorer states. But some Mississippi State University students are up to the challenge.

Sophomore economics major, Jack Bryan and his two partners, are among three groups at the S3 Innovation Challenge at Mississippi State University. Bryan and his team hope to solve the problem of expensive emergency room visits.

“Two thirds of visits at the emergency room happen at night when the ER has the monopoly over health care and so we are looking into ways to using telemedicine to make primary care facilities open 24/7,” says Jack Bryan.

The solution could drop the cost of an the average emergency room visit from $800 or $1000 to $100. Entrepreneurship leader Eric Hill says students were in charge of their own topics. That way, Friday’s competition not only inspired creativity but also forced them to take a new look at problems in their communities.

“This is part of the Mississippi blue print challenge and this is an initiative to get students to think entrepreneurally about a more important social issues that are facing the state,” says Eric Hill.

While some students are tackling the high cost of medical care, others are using plastic packaging material donated by South Wire to create the perfect outfit.

“For our dress we wanted to create something unique and something not expected from the material so we decided to create a ball gown. It was pretty difficult from the material but we did it,” says Gabrielle Martinez.

Assistant Professor Charles Freeman knows these outfits teach students more than how to create a masterpiece.

“It’s solving a problem and that’s where I really think this whole day is about from all the student groups from across the area is being innovative and coming up with a new solutions be entrepreneur in thinking,” says Charles Freeman.

Similar competitions have been held at the state’s other universities. Organizers and Innovate Mississippi hope the efforts produce workable solutions to issues in nine social categories.

Bryan and his group won first place in the Blue Print Challenge and Emily Turner won First place for the Sustainability competition.

Categories: Local News

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