Seventeen students completed eVenture 2011, a unique hands-on entrepreneurship experience conducted by Charter Partners Institute. They were asked to work together to find a better solution to a problem or opportunity they observe, and then develop that idea into a workable business or social initiative largely on their own. Staff and mentors were there to ask good questions and help them find resources, but the students had to figure out what steps to take and decisions to make based on their own intuitive judgment.
It was an intense and fun week. As in prior years, the students did some amazing work in only a week. Probably the best way to understand that is to review the final presentations made by each business team to our panel of judges. The judges this year were Patrick Clasen, Director of Finance for EcoTech Marine; Tina Hamilton, President of HireVision, and Ross Born, Co-CEO of Just Born.
Seven businesses presented at the end of the week. The review panel felt that all seven could be viable businesses if the teams continued to develop their business models. They asked the same kinds of questions they would of any entrepreneur at this early stage.
A brief description and video of each presentation follows. The first two businesses, My Jelly Beats and Youshi, also presented about a month later to the Lehigh Valley Angel Group, where they were well received and encouraged to continue with their businesses.
My Jelly Beats
A new idea for a website that helps young people find new music they like and connect with the artists.
Noah Belman, Sierra Benbrook, and Madhav Sekar
Youshi
A new idea for a restaurant that fuses exotic Japanese with American cuisine by providing healthy fresh food prepared as sushi but incorporating the customer’s choice of ingredients, including any combination of chicken and steak as well as traditional raw fish.
Maggie Flynn
Food Tape
An unusually creative idea for an edible tape that holds together difficult-to-eat foods such as tacos and can be eaten with the food.
Justin Malone
Freedom of Arts
A socially conscious business or non-profit that attracts kids off the street by combining (1) an art gallery where graphiti artists can legitimately paint and show their work during the day and (2) a “clean” club where friends gather at night to socialize while taking in the art and related talents such as music and rap.
Rose Dutan, Aleixa Gonzalez, Kaylie Gunter, Jhon Vasquez
Fresh Productions
A new idea for a full service artistic production company that combines services for DJ, music production, photography, video, graphics, etc. and specializes in creating unique memorable experiences leveraging multiple media for special events such as weddings.
Emilio Figueroa, Patrick Foley, Sergio Jara, Tyler Thomas, and Damon Williams
Handmade Centerpieces
A creative concept to provide unique, hand-crafted centerpieces for special occasions such as weddings that are also very cost effective.
Yesenia Cholula
Visualcation
A business providing high quality photography and video services conveniently from a single source.
Crystal Lucas and Jacob Warmkessel
Comments / Confessions
This year we provided an opportunity for eVenture 2011 participants and others to provide comments whenever they chose in the form of a video diary, which became known as the “confessional.” See what people said at the end of the week.
Photos Taken During eVenture 2011
