LARGO, Fla. – The Pinellas Education Foundation will award a total of $30,000 to the 1st, 2nd and 3rd place winners of its Next Generation Entrepreneurs and Next Generation Tech programs at an awards ceremony on April 25 at 5 p.m. at the Stavros Institute in Largo. Media is welcome to attend.
At the event, 1st place for each program will receive $10,000, 2nd place will receive $3,500 and 3rd place will receive $1,500. Winners can use the funds to either start their business or to go to college or technical school. Finalists in both programs took part in many different workshops and mentor opportunities with local entrepreneurs in order to hone their product concepts. Teams were able to apply to both programs if their projects fit the specifications for each program.
The finalists in the Next Generation Entrepreneur Program are:
Basketball Recycle – Clearwater High School – Matthew Nieves 10th Grade, Nathaniel Hauschild 10th Grade, Megan Dalemans 10th Grade
Product Summary: “Our goal is to increase the amount of the people that recycle. One of the main reasons why people choose not to recycle is because they have no motivation to recycle. With the “Basketball Recycling Bin”, we financially motivate users to recycle. The sensor on the hoop counts every water bottle that is thrown into the bin. At the end of the day, someone comes in to collect the water bottles from the bin. Each water bottle collected from the bin at the end of the day is worth fifty cents. Stopping the pain of recycling helps you earn money.”
Boil Blower – Osceola Fundamental High School – Noah Hirschfield 11th Grade and Ryan Sampey 11th Grade.
Product Summary: “Our product is the answer to the inefficiencies of boiling pasta in a pot. The product is a state of the art battery powered fan that prevents the bubbles created during the process of boiling from flooding out of the pot. This allows the chef to be able to multitask without the worry of a mess on the user’s stovetop. Overall, when a customer uses our product, it makes their life a lot easier and stress free while cooking something. The Boil Blower allows the customer to multitask while cooking, prevents a mess, and get distracted instead of the customer making a mess and not having the ability to multitask while cooking.”
Downtown – Lakewood High School – Katie McGilvery 12th Grade
Product Summary: “My service is an app that helps user find events from around St. Petersburg and combines weather, traffic, and ticket purchasing to expedite the process to attend events. It also uses filters to help users find events that are tailored to their interests.”
Gibbs Bucks Early Bird Express Truck – Gibbs High School, Team leaders: Destiny Perkins 11th Grade and Kayla Egulf 10th Grade
Product Summary: “Gibbs Early Bird Express is a coffee truck business that serves beverages early in the morning. We will serve the Gibbs High School neighborhood zones. We are preventing the rush hour accidents in the morning with a Coffee Truck in various locations around the community. We are working on an Early Bird Express App that can take Point of Sale into our online system and provides the customer with a GPS and an ETA so that their coffee made by the exact time they will arrive.”
Healthy on the Go – Clearwater High School – Andrea Hough 10th Grade and Cole Smith 10th Grade
Product Summary: “My project “healthy on the go” is like an ATM where you can customize your own healthy box of food depending on what type of box you picked. There will be different kinds of boxes like: midnight cravings, energy boost, breakfast blend, pre workout, after workout, protein power, etc. Each box will have a certain healthy selection to go with the type of box. The boxes will take no longer than 2 minutes.”
Project Sway – Lakewood High School – Benjamin Fischer 11th Grade, Christian De Napoli 11th Grade, Darin Debrestian 11th Grade and Robert Bolles 11th Grade
Product Summary: “Our product is an electric wheelchair that uses a different wheel setup than normal ones (ours will use mechanical wheels) which will allow the chair to move side to side as well as forwards and back. Our customers experience the pain of trying to move around in an environment not meant for wheelchairs, and our product removes this pain by giving them more maneuverability in a wheelchair.”
Skystream – Lakewood High School – Christian De Napoli 11th Grade, Harry Sauers 12thGrade and Marek Zebrowski 12th Grade
Product Summary: “Our product is first of its kind, to mend seamlessly the experience of HMD (head mounted displays) and the remote operation of drones to allow for a more immersive experience rather than a standard monitor.”
The finalists in the Next Generation Tech program are:
Berry Inc. – Career Academies of Seminole – Brandon Hendricks 9th Grade, Robert Berry III 11th Grade and Oscar Butler 11th Grade and Jacob Whittle 10th Grade
Product Summary: “Millions of kids around the country are still being bullied. That means that the methods used by schools are obsolete. We have a plan to help the millions of kids by giving kids more of an incentive to be the bigger person and help bullying dissolve into nothing. We have a genius idea to make a game to teach kids in their early middle school years about the long-term effects on bullying.”
Climate Inc. – Career Academies of Seminole – Russell Goodrich 11th Grade
Product Summary: “Who: Our product is meant for both believers or non-believers of global warming and human’s involvement throughout various countries across the world. What: Global warming is evidently a serious threat to the world. The climate impact on the globe has reached an all-time high, and the changes it can make will be cataclysmic. However, millions of people to this day, from normal everyday citizens to business CEO’s and politicians, still doubt the simple existence of the event. To fix the globe is going to require the efforts of all the people of the globe, and we need to reach the facts out to them. When: The event of global warming is occurring all around us as we speak, so it is important that we take action now. Where: All across the world, we are feeling the effects of Global Warming, from the uprising of carbon emissions in the atmosphere, to the soaring water temperatures in the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, so even the increase of global climate. Although this effect is felt more in some places than others, it is truly a world-wide disaster. Why: The globe is warming rapidly, and if we do not find a solution to it soon, it may reach the point in which the change is unstoppable. This will result is soaring temperatures, a major increase in carbon dioxide in the air, and eventually the widespread death of most species across the world, including humans. Billions could die as a result if we do not take action to present this.”
Ginger Inc. – Career Academies of Seminole –Rya Uttasing 9th, Daniel Warren 10th Grade, Trey Ballenger 10th Grade, Jared Desrosiers 10th Grade and Constantine Gonos 9th Grade
Product Summary: “We would like to make a quality program that gives educational content mainly for K-12 schools. (or at least better than school tube). We have reviewed other such websites that have the same idea, but all of them lack in quality and in actual education for as most of the videos were just videos made at a school, but not actually containing any educational content improving the learning experience for students. So, in a summary of our problem statement we are taking a similar idea and making it better in a more quality, easy to access, friendly website.”
Metero Games – Career Academies of Seminole – Mary Powell, David Fletcher and Ashton Anderson
Product Summary: “Many people in coastal communities take for granted how important it is to prepare for hurricanes. Some people don’t think that hurricanes will be that bad. Some don’t believe that the hurricane will impact them, so they don’t adequately prepare. In fact, 32 civilians died during hurricane Irma from causes such as drowning and blunt force injuries that could have been prevented if they had evacuated or prepared correctly. With our serious game, we hope to change people’s attitudes concerning hurricanes and give life-saving preparedness tips. We will give the player choices and consequences during situations that frequently happen in hurricanes, and guide them on how they can effectively prevent and prepare for these potentially fatal situations. Essentially, our serious game could save lives.”
NaviGo – Lakewood High School – Raymond Wong 12th Grade, Israel Graveran 11thGrade and Kevin Lai 12th Grade
Product Summary: “There are currently no public transportation apps that send live updates for PSTA buses, making it harder for riders to catch buses if the bus is early or they are late. The product will be a mobile application on iOS and Android platforms. It will use the RidePSTA API to pull real-time data on bus routes.”
Project Sway – Lakewood High School – Benjamin Fischer 11th Grade, Christian De Napoli 11th Grade, Darin Debrestian 11th Grade and Robert Bolles 11th Grade
Product Summary: “Our product will be aimed at people who require wheelchairs. It develops a solution for the issue of wheelchair mobility by using a different wheel setup. This will better allow people with wheelchairs to move around urban environments. By using an app to control it, we can both decrease costs for it, and implement additional features for people with other disabilities, such as voice control for those who may not have the dexterity (people with Parkinson’s, among others) to control it normally.”
Skystream – Lakewood High School – Benjamin Fischer 11th Grade, Christian De Napoli 11th Grade, Darin Debrestian 11th Grade and Robert Bolles 11th Grade
Product Summary: “Who: Media and entertainment companies (Twitch.tv), educational institutions, and even scientific r&d and exploration companies (SpaceX, Odyssey Marine) have no fully immersive user experience. This could also even be expanded into a military application with 3-dimensional rendering allowing personnel to make more accurate judgements. Additionally, it could allow students who cannot attend school to have a more intimate education. What: We will integrate the Oculus Rift system with remotely piloted drones and rovers, streaming a first-person view in real time. This will enable researchers to have a much more intimate experience with their subject material, whether in the deep sea, remote areas, or schools. When: The technology could be used either around-the-clock for promotional or demonstration purposes (for instance, live streaming a moon landing in 3D) or as-needed for research, surveillance, and remote attendance. Why: Three-dimensional user experiences are virtually nonexistent, and the Oculus system has yet to be adopted by the general or corporate population.”
Stuck on Mars – Career Academies of Seminole – Brendan Garabrant 9th Grade, Brandon Goettsch 10th Grade, Sean Lundy 10th Grade, Colby Hoffman 10th Grade and Justin Schyns 10th Grade
Product Summary: “Our project is going to be aimed towards elementary school students who are interested in learning about space and the solar system. It is made to educate students about the different planets in our solar system. Schools can fail to keep the students interested and stick with the content. We chose to do a game because games can make a learning environment fun, and help students remember content effectively. It is important to solve this problem because everyone should be educated about the places outside of our Earth, and because the students aren’t absorbing the content because they aren’t interested.”
Tekality Inc. – Career Academies of Seminole – Zachariah Dicce 9th Grade and Thien Hoang 9th Grade
Product Summary: “Who: Our target audience will differ due to different difficulty levels for all ages. What: Global Warming, Water pollution, Deforestation, and overall problems affecting the world. Where: Northeast. Heat waves, heavy downpours and sea level rise pose growing challenges to many aspects of life in the Northeast. Infrastructure, agriculture, fisheries and ecosystems will be increasingly compromised. Many states and cities are beginning to incorporate climate change into their planning. Northwest. Changes in the timing of stream flow reduce water supplies for competing demands. Sea level rise, erosion, inundation, risks to infrastructure and increasing ocean acidity pose major threats. Increasing wildfire, insect outbreaks and tree diseases are causing widespread tree die-off. Southeast. Sea level rise poses widespread and continuing threats to the region’s economy and environment. Extreme heat will affect health, energy, agriculture and more. Decreased water availability will have economic and environmental impacts. Midwest. Extreme heat, heavy downpours and flooding will affect infrastructure, health, agriculture, forestry, transportation, air and water quality, and more. Climate change will also exacerbate a range of risks to the Great Lakes. Southwest. Increased heat, drought and insect outbreaks, all linked to climate change, have increased wildfires. Declining water supplies, reduced agricultural yields, health impacts in cities due to heat, and flooding and erosion in coastal areas are additional concerns. Why: Because if we don’t, future generations could be left in a bad state that we have caused and they may not have as good of a life as we wanted them to have.”
The Good Vibez – Career Academies of Seminole – Eric Courtney 10th Grade, Jeff McMullen 12th Grade and Colby Callarik 10th Grade
Product Summary: “Our target audience is people who have trouble waking up in the morning particularly those in generation X and millennials who use their phone as an alarm clock. They would be downloading this app to help them wake up in the morning for their daily activities like school or work. 53% of people report feeling dreadful upon hearing their alarm. 65% of woman and 57% of men have gotten so used to their alarm and hitting the snooze button at least once. 33% of people use more than one alarm to get up. This can cause them to be late to their job or school. If this were to be fixed, then those people would have an easier time waking up and become more active mentally for their day. This would be used in the morning and even for other activities like working-out. This problem needs to be solved because these people can lose their job, get suspended from school, or other negative consequences.”
Now in its sixth year, the Foundation’s Next Generation Entrepreneurs program celebrates the innovative ideas from high schools students in Pinellas County. This year, more than 37 applications were submitted and seven were chosen as finalists.
The Foundation’s Next Generation Tech program is in its third year and had 30 applications from high school students in Pinellas County. Projects consisted of phone apps, videogames or other plans that encompassed programming and software design.
About The Pinellas Education Foundation
The Pinellas Education Foundation is an independent, non-governmental not-for-profit established in 1986. The Foundation’s mission is to enhance and improve educational opportunities in Pinellas County Schools. Well known Pinellas Education Foundation programs include: Academies of Pinellas, Enterprise Village, Finance Park, Take Stock in Children Scholarships, Youth Connect and Teacher Classroom Grants.
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