Tia Jenkins pitches her idea for Switchy Shoes, which earned her the largest cash prize
at Florida Atlantic University’s Tech Runway.
Tim Stepien/The Coastal Star
By Lucy Lazarony
Eighteen entrepreneurial youths, members of the Boca Raton Chamber of Commerce’s Young Entrepreneurs Academy, made their final pitches to a panel of investors at Florida Atlantic University’s Tech Runway on April 6.
The ideas were innovative: online gourmet home-baked goods, silk shirts scented with essential oils, packaged organic crockpot meals for busy moms, a website that connects students with performing arts teachers, a website that connects interns with businesses, a backpack organizer, a solar panel for backpacks and bracelets called “Moody Buddhi.”
The Young Entrepreneurs Academy is a program of the Boca Chamber’s Golden Bell Education Foundation.
Student entrepreneurs had been working on their businesses for six months. Each had five minutes to make a pitch for funding from the investor panel made up of Palm Beach County business leaders.
“These students represent the future innovators and job creators in Boca Raton,” said Jenna Reed, development director for the Golden Bell Education Foundation & YEA!
With a slogan of “Where there is sweetness for everyone,” Indira Fields of Boca Raton Community High School pitched “Sweeter Things,” her online gourmet baked goods company, which she launched in March.
Fields started baking about four years ago and shared samples of her products — homemade coconut macaroons, chocolate chip cheesecake and white chocolate blondies — with investors.
Pine Crest School’s Adrian Abedon of Adrian’s Kitchen promoted “healthy, organic, great-tasting slow cooker meals” that take less than five minutes to prepare. He plans to sell the prepackaged crockpot meals to 4th Generation Organic Market in Boca Raton.
And Arianna Staton of Spanish River High pitched her Applause website. “Applause connects aspiring students with teachers of the arts,” she explained to investors.
But the big winners of the night were the home-schooled Tia Jenkins of Boca Raton, who received first place for “Switchy Shoes,” and North Broward Prep School’s Bryan Edwards for “Baby Go-Go,” a small backpack with baby essentials, including two diapers, for on-the-go parents.
With Jenkins’ Switchy Shoes, “one pair of shoes, tons of possibilities,” you are able to switch the color of ballet shoes with ease from black to white, tan or pink, the colors used often in the performing arts.
Jenkins demonstrated her prototype to investors, changing the color of her ballet shoes by slipping Switchy Shoes covers over the shoes she was wearing. She earned a prize of $2,300 from investors.
Edwards as first runner-up was awarded $1,474.96.
Student entrepreneurs requested different dollar amounts from investors, with each student receiving $100 minimum for his or her efforts.
Other big-dollar investments for student businesses went to Abedon’s Adrian’s Kitchen, $1,250, and Staton’s Applause, $1,750.
Young entrepreneurs participating in the Investor Panel Competition were Adrian Abedon, Pine Crest School; David Benjamin, Miramar High School; Bryan Edwards, North Broward Prep School; Indira Fields, Boca Raton High; Regina Howson, Boca Raton High; Tia Jenkins, home school; Cody Katari, Pine Crest; Ori Leibovici, Dreyfoos High School of the Arts; Skylar Mandell, St. Andrew’s School; Tarini Padmanabhan, Pine Crest; Maxwell Peck, St. Andrew’s; Nicole Rafferty, St. Joan of Arc; Nicholas Schauer, Boca Raton High; Leah Serrano, Westglades Middle School; Charlot Silien, West Boca Raton Community High School; Arianna Staton, Spanish River High; Landon Tice, North Broward Prep; and Jordan Zakka, Pope John Paul II High.
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