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By Barbara McGuire

Daily Bruin Senior Staff

With Web sites like Matt Damon and Ben Affleck’s greenlightproject.com, which believes good screenplays are out there but writers just don’t have the means to get them produced, the Internet is offering the chance for a nobody to become a somebody with just the click of a mouse.

It’s sites like these that show how the Internet is becoming a tool that brings everyday people closer to making their dreams a reality, as opposed to functioning simply as a research mechanism or chat room go-between. A new Web site, bigideahunt.com, holds similar goals to greenlightproject.com, only it aims to provide inventors with a venue to market their products to retailers.

The Web site plans to launch various campaigns that will give inventors the chance to get their products seen and tested. A site that seems useful to both potential inventors with ideas and professional corporations looking for ideas, bigideahunt.com is the first company of its kind that hopes to form a line of communication between the two groups.

According to the Web site, Michael Collins, founder of Big Idea Hunt Inc., created the company after experiencing problems on both sides of the process.

“This company was born of my frustrations as both an inventor and CEO of a company looking for innovative new ideas,” he said. “From my experience, matching up a great idea with the right company is too often like BBs colliding – it can happen, but it’s a coincidence.”

With such honest inspiration, the company has launched its first national campaign, “Toys and Games Search,” with the desire to find the most unique and innovative new toy products. Anyone is invited to participate in the contest-like campaign, and can register their entries for the contest via the Web site.

This project, along with the other projects Big Idea Hunt hopes to launch, is aimed at helping both the inventors and corporate partners of the company. Inventors are offered not only a connection straight to experts in the field, but also help in developing, packaging and presenting ideas, in addition to negotiation of a licensing agreement, which is often considered to be the most tedious and difficult part of the process.

Big Idea Hunt presents the ideas they choose consider to be the best to their corporate partners. To streamline the process, companies will only be shown products that are similar to those the has specified an interest in.

The Web site is the easiest way to access all that Big Idea Hunt has to offer. Those who visit the site will have the option to learn more about the way the company works, register for any of its various campaigns or access potentially valuable information.

For instance, visitors can read the “Inventors’ Bill of Rights,” a list which lets inventors know what steps they should take to make sure they aren’t being cheated. The list sets down a few house rules that Big Idea Hunt follows to uphold their professionalism and prevent any misunderstandings between inventors and the site’s administrators.

Rights range from “Respect,” which promises to provide “respect for the needs and concerns of inventors,” to “Confidentiality,” which declares, “information that inventors share with Big Idea Hunt about themselves, their inventions and their ideas will be treated as confidential information.”

Though their “Toys and Games Search” campaign is currently the only project under way, the site promises that more will soon follow. Other future idea campaigns may include music, sports products, food and beverages, software, health and beauty aids and screenplays, to name a few.

“Young Inventors Zone, the e-community for young inventors,” is in developmental stages, aiming to open up the invention market to young creative minds.

So, for those who have a great idea that came to them one drunken evening, or maybe during a moment of epiphany, bigideahunt.com is the site to check out.

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