Innovation Happens

Like many students, Grayson Allen initially struggled to find the “perfect fit” for his major. He reached out to family friends and his social network, and after hearing stories of their career paths, was inspired to select a new major and career where he could create solutions to help improve peoples’ lives. Originally an aerospace engineering major, Grayson changed his major to manufacturing engineering at the Polytechnic campus. Grayson and a friend Kevin Hale, a software engineer, had heard a tragic story of a child drowning in a pool…a tragedy that struck them as preventable, and their backgrounds would be perfectly suited for designing a new solution to help solve the problem. Leveraging the power of the program that would become Venture Devils, they launched their company Halen Smart and their first product, GATESENSE, a device which turns any gate into a “smart gate”. Join us as Grayson walks through the product viability process, the rollercoaster ride of creating a new venture, the importance of hav