The 2018 Competition
First Round Presentations
Friday, February 23, 1:30 p.m., Murray-Aikins Dining Hall 2nd Floor
Now in its 8th year, this competition, spearheaded by Ken Freirich, Skidmore Class of 1990, has worked with over 300 students from all class-years and majors to develop and implement their business ideas. These businesses have been for-profit, not-for-profit, and social entrepreneurial endeavors.
This year there are 15 businesses that will be presenting before a panel of 9 alumni judges from all over the US who have read each of the 15 business plans, will listen to the students’ pitches on Friday, and then choose 9 of those businesses to go on to the next round of the competition, culminating in final presentations before a different set of alumni judges on Friday, April 6th. Each of the judges in this first round of the competition will chose one of the finalist whom they will mentor on to the final round.
Here are a sampling of the businesses presenting on Friday:
- Clothesline (For Profit) [Dante Tobar ’18 (PY) and Ben Cail ’18 (Classics)]: Dante and Ben have
created a web-based retail shopping app that provides a social space where users can
interact, sharing fashion ideas, trends, or simply hot new items to which they are
attracted.
- Craft Cloud (Social Entrepreneurship/NFP) [Jamerly De Le Cruz ’18 (Anthropology) and Taina Cotto
’20 (Management and Business)]: Jamerly and Taina are creating an interactive blog
platform using the arts and other media to promote success and cultural awareness
for high-school students of color. They intend to work with teachers, guidance counselors,
and school social workers to bring this platform into the classroom to inspire students
to ‘turn blank walls into vivid windows of unlimited opportunity’.
- Kind Cultures (For Profit) [Graham Gilmore ’18 (Management and Business)]: Kind Cultures has developed,
produced, and distributed raw honey-based Kombucha throughout the US. Kombucha is
a carbonated probiotic beverage made through the fermentation of a sweetened tea using
a probiotic culture of beneficial bacteria and yeast. What is unique about Graham’s
product is that it is the only Kombucha currently produced that does not use sugar
as its base.
- Green Cream Goat Scream (For Profit) [Alana Pogostin ’20 (Economics) and Emily Egan ’20 (Studio Art): Green
Scream is a New York State-based frozen dessert company that produces ice cream from
goat milk. You’ve got to try it to love it.
- Healing the Divide (Not for Profit) [Philip Caine ’18 (Management and Business)]: Inspired by his own
experience and by the role modeling of Paul Farmer and Maurice Sendak (you’ll have
to hear Philip’s presentation to understand how he was inspired by Where the Wild Things Are) Healing the Divide has created a Pen Pal Platform where children in long term and
terminal hospital care can communicate with each other globally. It is intended to
allow children in these long-term situations to learn about other parts of the world
and to be able to share their experiences and feelings that they might not be able
to share with their parents and other care-givers.
- Arrow Exterminating (Not for Profit) [Nathan Wissner ’18 (Physics)]: Arrow Exterminating (nothing to
do with bugs and other vermin) plans to working personally with performance artists
to design their own intimate merchandise that exemplifies their latest body of work,
as well as aiding in the creation of a charitable cause that symbolizes the artist’s
vision for a better world.
- Edutrer (Social Entrepreneurship/Not for Profit): [Naira Abdula ’20 (Economics)]: Having already received a $10K grant from the Davis Foundation, Naira has built a schoolhouse appended to an orphanage in rural Mozambique to teach literacy skills to the children, with the goal of preparing them to attend regular schooling. She has trained volunteers to work with the children using Google learning and Chromebooks.