High schoolers win global entrepreneurship competition
(Left) Shreya Rekapalli, Anuj Das, Ananya Ganesh, Alex Gonzalez, and Anushka Koratana.
TiE Young Entrepreneurs is a robust program to educate high school students on what it takes to be successful in business as an entrepreneur. Students form teams and meet with mentors twice a month for six months to ideate, select ideas, and create a comprehensive business plan. At the end of the program, teams compete locally for title and cash prizes, and then compete against teams from across the world at the TiE Young Entrepreneurs Global Competition.
TYE Atlanta's team Chill Wipes won the Regional Competition at TiECON SE on the 29th of April 2017. They then competed at the TYE Global Final Competition held at UC Irvine on June 23, 2017 against 25 other teams from around the world and the United States. Team Chill Wipes (Shreya Rekapalli – Junior at Riverwood High School, Anuj Das – Junior at Alpharetta HS, Ananya Ganesh – Sophomore at Westminster Schools, Alex Gonzalez – Senior at Cristo Rey Atlanta Jesuit HS, and Anushka Koratana – Sophomore at Northview HS) won first place in the Global competition. They also won the Best Elevator Pitch award making them the first team ever to win both a special award and best team award. They captured prizes worth $10,000. Mentors for 2017 were Jim Beach and Amyn Sadruddin.
Atlanta teams have placed 3 out of 4 years in the Global event, with 1st Place in 2014 and 2017.
Team Chill Wipes designed a biodegradable, all natural essential-oil-based cooling wipe with sun protection in a compact, economical, and customizable pack. They devised an innovative marketing channel involving a network of peer high school students. Chill Wipes aims to cool the skin and provide sun protection.
Second place 2017 went to “AeroCleanse” from Team Hubli (city near Bangalore, an education hub of India), which is an external air filter attached to cars and trucks to cut air pollution in developing countries. New Delhi took third with “Carry on,” a ready-packed suitcase with clothes and travel items at the hotel for frequent travelers, so they don’t need to pack and haul bags from place to place.
The team was recently featured on WABE radio’s Closer Look with Rose Scott (see link below).
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Podcast: Friday, AUGUST 25, 2017
"Closer Look: Indie Music Artist Rick Wilkerson Performs"
Friday on "Closer Look with Rose Scott": 0:00: Rose Scott gives a news brief on the end of the qualifying period for Atlanta city races, and this weekend's opening of the Mercedes-Benz Stadium when the Atlanta Falcons face the Arizona Cardinals in their third pre-season game. 2:08-20:54: A team of five Atlanta high school students recently won a $10,000 global competition. Rose talks to students Shreya Rekapalli, Anushka Koratana and Ananya Ganesh about their prize-wining invention "Chill Wipes." Also, more about the organization behind the competition, the Indus Entrepreneurs networking organization (TiE), from its president Kanchana Raman.
http://www.npr.org/podcasts/474969051/closer-look-with-rose-scott
http://news.wabe.org/post/closer-look-indie-music-artist-rick-wilkerson-performs
https://www.bizjournals.com/atlanta/news/2017/07/31/atlanta-high-schoolers-win-global-entrepreneurship.html
Team mentor Amyn Sadruddin, TiE president Kanchana Raman, and students, Anushka Koratana, Ananya Ganesh, and Shreya Rekapalli at the WABE radio interview for Closer Look with Rose Scott.
The 2017-2018 TYE program will begin in September 2017 (https://hub.tie.org/e/tie-young-entrepreneurs-tye-2017-18).
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