PROVIDENCE – A group of high school students pitching new ideas for businesses received a combined $650 in startup money Friday to make their plans a reality.
Hosted by the Metropolitan Regional Career and Technical Center’s Center for Entrepreneurship, Friday’s competition pitted five business plans against each other. Each student or group had 10 minutes to present a plan to a panel composed of local business leaders and entrepreneurs.
Judges awarded $500 to freshman James Carlino and Nassar Asad for the Snack Attack Vending proposal. The pair, the youngest competitors, said Snack attack aimed to “provide a great tasting, healthy, low-cost and convenient snack through our quality vending machine.”
Judges also awarded sophomore Nathen Cunha $150 for his NMC Graphics pitch. Cunha proposed a “full-service graphic design organization that takes care of the entire process. We work from scratch to completion or any part of the process to ensure customer satisfaction.”
The panel also awarded $100 to junior Christian Quinonez for the best presentation. Judges asked Mike Andrada and Manuel Castro, proposing Wacky Game Tournaments, and Jonathan Caines, proposing KabloomTickets.com, to return with refined proposals. Up to $5,000 in seed money from private investors was available.
The competition was part of the Met School’s Entrepreneur 360 (E360) course. The 60-hour program supported by the National Foundation for Teaching Entrepreneurship teaches students the concepts and skills to create and design a business and then as a culminating piece, write a business plan.
“The Met’s real-world learning model ignites students’ passion, learning and success, setting them on a course of lifelong learning and pathways to satisfying careers,” said Dennis Littky, co-founder and co-director of The Met. “We connect our students to entrepreneurs, and through E360 they develop the tools they need to be innovators and entrepreneurs in the 21st century.”
The judges included Brown professor Barrett Hazeltine; Jamie Siminoff, entrepreneur and CEO, Phonetag.com; Karen Couto, entrepreneur and founder of New Ground Publications; Liana Cassar, president and CEO of Rooted Radiance; Jim Sullivan, manager, Strategic Procurement, CVS Caremark; Ed Alves, president, People Resources, Peter McLoughlin, McLoughlin Consulting, and Jerome Thompson – Community Works. Also sitting on the panel were Jodie Woodruff, director of The Met Center for Entrepreneurship and Bill Daugherty, Entrepreneurship-360 chairman.
