Archive for April 2009
Getting Financial Help For Your Inventions
Getting financial help with your invention idea can be a difficult task. Luckily, if you get a bit creative, there are a number of ways you can get funding for a new invention.
First, if you are still a student, then there are numerous contests that will provide scholarships, and sometimes cash, for winning. Check out the collegiate inventors competition and the NCIIA.
If you are out of college and you still would like funding, you can do a few things to help make your idea a reality. First, starting a business and obtaining a business loan is a very good way to get financial backing. The downside is that you will need to pay this back eventually, so if your idea fails, you could be on the hook for thousands of dollars.
Government grants are another method of getting money. The upside is that you can get a good bit of money, and you don’t have to pay it back. However, grants like this can be extremely competative, and you have to make sure that your invention covers an area where a grant is currently open.
If you have some connections, you can also try to contact a venture capital firm – they will invest and fund your invention in order to bring it to market. The downside of this is that they’ll want a share in the profits, and they may want to become more involved, which can comprimise your original vision.
While it is difficult to get financial help to make your invention a reality, it is definately not impossible.
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Aztec Inventions – Chewing Gum
Chances are, at some point in your life, you’ve chewed gum. But, did you know that the Aztecs and Mayans were among the first to use it?
When the conquistadores invaded in 1518, they ran across Aztec prostitutes chewing gum on the corners.
The actual discovery of chewing gum came a few hundred years earlier, however, by the Mayans. They found that chicle, a thick milky liquid that oozes out of cuts made in the wild sapodilla tree and then hardens into gum, was extremely tasty when chewed. As with many other popular pastimes, the importance of chicle to the Maya is clearly from their mythology: The culture hero Kukulkan (”the Feathered Serpent”), who conquered the Maya and changed their way of life to such an extent that he became worshiped as a god, was a great chewer of gum.
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