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The first place team, from left, Hady Hewidy ’17, Gillian Mak ’18, Elise Eagan ’15 and Jennifer Munn ’16 of Suny POLY.
The first place team, from left, Hady Hewidy ’17, Gillian Mak ’18, Elise Eagan ’15 and Jennifer Munn ’16 of Suny POLY.

The Levitt Center hosted its second StartupExperience, an intensive two-day workshop for students interested in social and commercial entrepreneurship on Nov. 8 and 9.  Participants worked in teams to learn about problem identification, technology trends, design thinking, business model innovation, customer development and pitching, and in the process gained the confidence to create a viable start-up. 

The participants were trained by the Danish serial entrepreneur Henrik Scheel, who grew up in Denmark but now lives in Silicon Valley. Scheel has a wealth of experience from the startup ecosystem in San Francisco and has worked with entrepreneurs in more than 14 countries around the world.

The workshop ended with a pitch competition with prizes for the first, second and third place teams. The students had to identify a problem and put together a business plan that could solve it.

The winning group pitched the idea for the business "Food Forward." The winning team aims to address childhood obesity through the use of social media, as well as teaching cooking. Members of the first place team were Hady Hewidy ’17, Gillian Mak ’18, Elise Eagan ’15 and Jennifer Munn ’16 of Suny POLY.  They all won Amazon gift cards.

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