College students compete with business ideas at Entrepreneurship Immersion Week
Published: Friday, August 13, 2010, 6:12 PM Updated: Friday, August 13, 2010, 6:19 PM
Hiram College sophomore Daniel Fakhoury couldn't even look at chocolate syrup the same on Tuesday, after spending three days in a program about how entrepreneurs innovate or improve products.
It didn't take long for his teammates to help create "Stir-Ups," an idea to fill straws with chocolate syrup. The idea captured $4,000 Friday at Baldwin Wallace College, in a competition among college students to create business concepts.
"We can see kids ages 5 to 14 as our primary consumer," Fakhoury said. "But anyone who loves chocolate milk as much as us might buy it."
The idea has a chance of becoming part of an actual business, since the winning team of the 4th annual "Entrepreneurship Immersion Week" competition also won web development and hosting from Cleveland-based WRIS Web Services and incubator space and services at the nonprofit Manufacturing Advocacy and Growth Network, known as MAGNET.
Student teams at John Carroll University tied for second place with "Menu 2.0," an iPad application used to replace restaurant menus, and Baldwin Wallace College's team's idea for "Excelery Health," a web-based gaming program aimed at combating childhood obesity. Both teams won $2,000.
The prize money is secondary to the program's goals.
"What's unique about EEC is we're directors of competing programs at area colleges and universities who work together for the benefit of the region," said Phil Bessler, president of the EEC, which is funded primarily by the Burton D. Morgan Foundation.
"Our program participants likely grew up in Northeast Ohio, have elected to get educated here, and we teach them to start new ventures to create wealth and jobs in Northeast Ohio."
Other participating college teams included students from the University of Akron, Ashland University, Case Western Reserve University, Lake Erie College and Kent State University.
Earlier this year, the EEC won the top award for teaching methods from the United States Association of Small Business and Entrepreneurship, the nation's largest independent academic entrepreneurship association.
8/13/2010
College students compete with business ideas at Entrepreneurship Immersion Week
via cleveland.com
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