JA Company Program Startups Excel at HCCs IDEAS Pitch Competition

Author: Courtney Azuike
Entrepreneurship
Published: Monday, 21 Dec 2020

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Houston Community College (HCC) hosted their bi-annual Student IDEAS Pitch Competition virtually last month. This competition was designed for high school and college students to share their creative ideas and social innovations by pitching a product or service to a panel of expert judges from Rice University, University of St. Thomas, HCC and Impact Houston. The judging criteria for the entries were social impact, economic impact, environmental impact, completeness of the pitch, and originality. The top three teams and entrepreneurs received much needed seed money to fund their companies.

JA of Southeast Texas is proud to announce that out of the 15 finalists selected, 8 were JA startups founded under the JA Company Program! We are excited that our startups performed exceedingly well even up against strong competition from college students. Simply Co. from Clements High School won 3rd place for their food clip that is convenient and effective at preserving food/snacks in bags (so that they will not go stale) and Dulicious Co. from Dulles High School won 2nd place for their product Hexawrap – a sustainable, reusable beeswax wrap that helps promote the eradication of plastic wraps and creates awareness about the declining bee population. CEOs Michelle Wang (Simply Co.) and Sophia Zhao (Dulicious Co.) did an outstanding job of leading their teams and helping their startups win $1,000 total in prize money!

We are grateful to Ravi Brahmbhatt, HCC’s Director of Student Innovation and Entrepreneurship, for this amazing opportunity. The support of David Regenbaum, Chairman of the Board of Directors at the Houston Community College Foundation, and Sandra Louvier, Director of the Glenda and David Regenbaum Center for Entrepreneurship at HCC Northwest, was also instrumental to the success of this event. Many thanks to our HCC Family for continuing to empower the JA Company Program and provide great business platforms for our teen entrepreneurs to thrive!