2019-2020 Awards and Recognition
Each spring, we hold an expo and awards event to showcase our entrepreneurs, announce scholarships, and recognize achievements from the academic year. Given the current COVID-19 situation and campus closures, this recognition has been pivoted to a virtual approach. We are hopeful that we will all be able to celebrate together in Fall 2020.
Awards and Scholarships
Congratulations LaunchNET Award Recipients!
Marty Erbaugh Student Entrepreneur Scholarship:
ALEXANDRA REICHPaul L. Pfeiffer Student Startup Scholarship:
JAVON MILLERPaul L. Pfeiffer Faculty Mentor Award:
DR JIHYUN KIMMore information on all of the awards and winners can be found here.
Pitch Competition Winners
Idea Olympics is LaunchNET's annual business concept competition. $4,000 in funding is up for grabs as Kent State students of any class levels or majors compete with their new ventures! The finalists this year were true entrepreneurs, pivoting their presentations for a virtual event due to state and campus closures in response to COVID-19.
Calitronics
first place: $2,000
Presented by:
Daniel Issac, junior, Mechanical Engineering Technology and Paul Coulter, junior, Mechanical Engineering TechnologyTrolder
second place: $1,000
Presented by:
Luke Leyden, sophomore, Computer Engineering TechnologyAdvocates for Autism
third place (tie): $500
Presented by:
Jordan Worrell, senior, Psychology and MusicVirtue
third place (tie): $500
Presented by:
Heeju Noe, graduate student, Fashion Industry Studies
Entrepreneur's Organization Global Student Entrepreneur Awards Finals
Gregory Joyce competed and took 2nd place at the Cleveland competition of the Entrepreneur's Organization Global Student Entrepreneur Awards in November!
Congrats Gregory!!
Gregory Joyce also placed 2nd, taking home $5,000 in the CEBI Pitch competition at Kent State! Congrats, Gregory!
Elevator Pitch
We once again jumped in the elevators in The University Library, to deliver our 90 second elevator pitches (business and personal). Over 30 students pitched themselves or a business idea. Four winners went home with $300 checks:
Sarah Suntheimer, junior, mathematics
Brianna Cotton, senior, fashion merchandising
Cliford Fumbui, senior, business management
Jillian Eddy, sophomore, engineering technology
Congratulations to the finalists and winners of the 2nd annual FlashLab Innovation Pitch Contest. The competition came to a close Dec. 3 where seven students pitched their ideas and the judges crowned four winners. Each winning idea will share up to $10,000 from the Student Media Innovation Fund in order to launch, test and maintain their ideas in the coming months. LaunchNET is a partner on this Student Media event and our own Zach Mikrut served a judge for the event.
1st Place – Tyshaia Earnest and Kylah Carter (Fashion Merchandising majors, Fashion Media minors)
2nd Place – Aidan Taylor (DMP and Pan African Studies double major)
3rd Place – Rachel Hale (PR major)
Thank You!
We would like to give a special shout-out and thank you to all of our 2019-2020 student employees! LaunchNET would not have been able to produce these events and activities without your hard work throughout the year.
Amrth Ashok Shenava
Student Fellow
Emily Gommel
Designer
Javon Miller
Student Fellow
Janardhan Parimi
Event Planning Assistant - EIW
Kaitlyn McFadden
Event Planning Assistant - Skyhack
Madisen Mandell
Student Fellow
Morgan Hamlin
Designer
Rhonda BaldwinStudent Fellow
Taylor Savage
Student Fellow
Special Recognition
Thirteen cross-disciplinary teams presented in the Kent State competition for Mission:Life in October. The winning team, Virtual Harmony, presented their concept in the international competition at the PUCPR University in Brazil on November 11.
Virtual Harmony is a novel concept for a music therapy interface utilizing virtual reality. The team is made up of three Kent State students: Alena Miskinis, undergraduate student in Music and English, Xiangxu “Shawn” Lin, a graduate student in Computer Science, and Shadi Kanan, graduate student in the College of Nursing.
Marty Erbaugh Student Entrepreneur Scholarship
Thank you for all the support of the Marty Erbaugh Student Entrepreneur Scholarship! We are so pleased to be able to honor Marty's memory by supporting more student entrepreneurs in their collegiate journey.
Thanks to our generous donors, we were able to raise $44k for a new student entrepreneur scholarship through this Giving Tuesday Campaign!
Entrepreneurship Immersion Week
From July 28 to August 2, 2019, forty students from ten different Northeast Ohio colleges and universities convened at Kent State to be immersed in an entrepreneurial experience like no other. For the five days and four nights students worked together, with faculty, staff, and regional business leaders, to create innovative solutions that address local industry and community challenges. The event is one of two major programs put on each year by the Entrepreneurship Education Consortium (EEC) and funded through the Burton D. Morgan Foundation. The event was hosted by LaunchNET Kent State, with support from University Libraries. Continued...
