The IthacaSTEM Advocates, an affiliate of the Ithaca Public Education Initiative (IPEI) has created an entrepreneurship component to the capstone pre-engineering class at Ithaca High School. With the help of community members, students have been taught and mentored as they develop a product idea before doing the research and design preparation for building a prototype. On December 18, students pitched their ideas to a panel of judges at the Business Idea Challenge Night held at Rev, the new business incubator in downtown Ithaca. The judges decided if the teams would receive funding needed to buy supplies for their prototyping during the spring semester of EDD, Engineering Design and Development of the Project Lead the Way series of high school courses.
There were six teams of students who pitched the following ideas: MediMove for putting an auto-injector into a smartphone case, Full Cycle Bikes to use bikes to generate power in the developing world, Pump-Action Mods to improve the Nerf Retaliator for Humans vs. Zombies games, Lake Rake for a better hydrilla sampling solution, Human Power to create a wearable human-powered device to charge a smartphone, and The Plug Saver to protect grounding plugs on power tools to improve safety.
According to Illa Burbank, president of the IthacaSTEM Advocates and lead volunteer for this activity, community members worked with the students starting in October during class time. Teaching the basic principles of business plans were Brad Grainger of Cain Brothers Funding, Eric Eisenhut of Kensa Group, Brad Treat of Ithaca College, Dan Cohen of Cornell, and Tony Eisenhut of Rheonix. During the next two months, the six teams were mentored by Aaron Proujansky of Greengage, Treat, Brian Bauer of Rev, Bruce Lane of Purity Ice Cream, Chris Camadella of Vroom Consulting, Beth Mielbrecht at Taitem Engineering, and Burbank of Incodema. Judges on December 18 included Zach Shulman, Director of Entrepreneurship @ Cornell; Tim McCabe, TC3 Chair of Entrepreneurialism Department; Barbara Howard, Assistant Dean of Ithaca College’s business school; and Luvelle Brown, Ithaca City School District Superintendent.
All teams received a share of the available funding. Funds were contributed to IthacaSTEM by individuals and businesses specifically for this purpose.
For more information about IthacaSTEM and how to support this affiliate of the Ithaca Public Education Initiative. IPEI is a not-for-profit organization that believes the education of every ICSD student is enhanced through community connections and support facilitated by IPEI for students and teachers through engagement, collaboration, gifts, and grants. More information about Ithaca STEM Advocates and IPEI can be found at www.ithacastem.org and www.ipei.org