The Sabin Enrepreneurial Prize 2024

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THE SABIN ENTREPRENEURIAL PRIZE

ESTABLISHED 2011

BUSINESS PLAN PRESENTATIONS AND AWARDS EVENT

April 25, 2024

HempFlex

Drew Bogardus '24  Dylan Gage '24  Kyle Kirby '24  Kelsey Plumb '24

HempFlex is a company established to combat the sustainability and performance problems currently associated with the realm of the athletic tape industry. Currently, athletic tape is used carelessly and created ineffectively, lacking an eco-friendly, athletically enhancing alternative. Current athletic tape isn’t durable enough, limits movement, and most of all, is detrimental to the environment. With our unique use of hemp, CBD, and PLCL, we will create a biodegradable athletic tape that provides anti-inflammatory benefits to athletes of all sports and ages. Our product will attract a vast majority of professional athletic trainers, athletes, and sporting brands, creating a new and improved form of athletic training.

Bio‐Sharps

Will Faucett '24  Roy Krueger '24  Harry Stone '25

Bio-Sharps is a company that combats plastic waste by producing biodegradable insulin pens. In the U.S., 59% of the 38 million diabetics use insulin pens. In 2021 alone, the leading producer of insulin pens produced over 28 million pounds of plastic waste from pens they sold. This massive amount of used pens ultimately cannot be recycled, resulting in every used insulin pen ending up in a landfill. We plan to create the body and needle of the insulin pen out of a biodegradable and compostable bioplastic called PLA. Our solution seeks to tackle the seemingly insurmountable environmental impact of insulin pens while also providing convenience to consumers. Investing in our vision and our commitment to sustainability is an investment into a viable product as well as the planet’s future.

THE SABIN ENTREPRENEURIAL PRIZE PRESENTATIONS

What is it?

The Sabin Entrepreneurial Prize is an initiative created with the generous support of the Andrew Sabin Family Foundation to educate and expose Berkshire students enrolled in Advanced Economics to entrepreneurship and sustainability.

The Sabin Entrepreneurial Prize is awarded to the best business plan for a product, service, project or program that not only could be financially feasible but could contribute to living in more sustainable communities. Additionally, the prize competition provides quality feedback from professionals, collaboration with the Yale Center for Business and the Environment, and opportunities for participants to meet with guest speakers from the business and environmental worlds.

The Sabin Entrepreneurial Prize seeks to:

 Introduce students to the essentials of writing a business plan;

 Provide a real-world platform to practice public speaking and presenting;

 Promote the entrepreneurial spirit;

 Stimulate creativity and critical thinking as it applies to the area of sustainable living;

 Reward effective collaboration in the construction and promotion of a coherent and sustainable business plan.

BioContainers & Co.

Elle Eggleston '24  Katherine Fisher '24  Nathan Sevilla '24

BioContainers & Co. is a sustainable container company that is looking to combat global plastic consumption through the food industry. Plastic pollution is a leading cause of climate change with 40% of plastic waste coming from food packaging alone and nearly nine million tons of carbon dioxide released annually from plastic products in landfills. Plastics also take 400-500 years to fully decompose, and as we see this issue worsening with time, it will continue to impact us daily. Made from seaweed, our biodegradable clamshell containers for fruit will break down in three to six months without the release of methane and without the need for industrial composting facilities. With government funding, we can bypass the higher costs associated with sustainable packaging. By partnering with name brand fruit distributors, we can introduce this product into the grocery market unlike existing sustainable plastic packaging brands. As one of the first biodegradable fruit packaging companies seen on grocery shelves across the country, BioContainers & Co. is taking steps towards a cleaner future.

Subscription Prescriptions

Jonah Boren '24  Joshua Marlowe '24  Ellie Tiedemann '24

Subscription Prescriptions is a company to help the people who struggle with medication adherence, especially those over the age of 65. The current prescription medication delivery system creates over 165 billion single use bottles per year and leads to preventable tragedies – 125,000 Americans lose their lives due to incorrect medication use. Our mission is to provide a safer, faster, and more sustainable alternative to the traditional delivery system and storage of prescription medications.

What are the business plans?

Cleaning Thyme

Eva Greene '24  Trevor Perkins '24  Natasha Wool '24

Cleaning Thyme is an eco-friendly alternative to school cleaning supplies. Schools go through hundreds of bottles of disinfectants monthly, yet most of the products used come in unsustainable packaging or use harsh chemicals in their solutions. As a response to both the environmental and health concerns of cleaning products used in academic settings, our company has designed a wholly sustainable and eco-friendly thyme oil cleaning solution that would be stored and packaged in bamboo bottles. The “green” cleaning market is a fast-growing industry that schools are looking to invest in to maintain the health of both students and the planet, and our product responds to this demand.

Everlather

Tashfi Islam '24  Finn Lewis '24  Aiden Rodriguez '24

The current liquid soaps that are being sold are unhealthy for your skin and more expensive in the long run than alternatives. Everlather aims to create shampoo, conditioner, and soap bars that are better for your scalp health, are more convenient for customers, and prioritize zero waste. In the United States, 550 million empty shampoo bottles are thrown away every year and end up in landfills. The market shows a great opportunity for Everlather, as longevity within skin and scalp health has become a growing concern in recent years and will only continue to grow. Contributing to Everlather’s success will not only help our planet in the long run, but will help your skin and ease your mind by taking action in change.

Who is the sponsor?

Andrew Sabin

Parent of Samuel Sabin ’13 and Matthew Cortes ’17

Grandparent of Michael Sabin ’21, Keira Sabin ’22, Ella Sabin ’24

Mr. Sabin does more than simply provide financial support to hundreds of organizations; he is actively engaged with community and environmental programs around the world. He spearheaded the building of a community recreation center in East Hampton, NY. As an extension of his lifelong fascination with reptiles and amphibians and dedication to environmental education, he founded the South Fork Natural History Museum in Bridgehampton, and he continues to lead nature walks for the institution. Mr. Sabin also participated in an expedition to Papua, New Guinea, that resulted in the discovery of a new species of frog that is named for him: Aphantophryne sabini.

He has served for several years on the environmental law advisory boards at Columbia Law School and UCLA School of Law, relationships that began through his role as treasurer of The Evan Frankel Foundation, which made grants of more than $17 million during its 15-year existence. Mr. Sabin is also proud to be a member of the board of visitors of the M.D. Anderson Cancer Center at the University of Texas since 2005. In 2007, to provide more professional support for his philanthropy and involve his family in charitable giving, he established the Andrew Sabin Family Foundation. Mr. Sabin’s passions are his family, the environment, bicycling and fishing. He also has a fondness for purple martins.

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Who are the judges?

Matthew Cortes ’17

Matt is a recent graduate of Berkshire School (2017). He graduated from Wake Forest University in 2021 with a bachelor’s degree in Business and Enterprise Management. During his time at Berkshire, he was the cross-country captain and a prefect of Stanley dormitory, along with being a participant in the Sabin Prize in 2016.

Currently in his first job post-graduation, Matt resides in New York and is a financial analyst at Bloomberg, specializing in the commodities asset-class and assisting in overseeing the data consumption of clients on the platform. Matt is an avid runner, and he ran in the New York Marathon last fall.

Sabra Krock P’27

Sabra Krock is the co-owner and creative director of Everything But Water, a national retailer of women's swimwear, resort wear, and accessories with 80 stores coast-to-coast and a leading ecommerce website. Over the past 14 years, Sabra and her husband and business partner, Randall Blumenthal, have re-invented every aspect of the business including branding, product categories, store portfolio, and technology. Sabra previously worked as a management consultant in consumer goods and retail at the Boston Consulting Group where she advised numerous companies in segments such as cosmetics, health, apparel, and baby food. She received an MBA from the Harvard Business School and a BA from Barnard College. Sabra lives in upstate New York with her husband and three children, one of whom is a Third Form Berkshire Bear.

Tony Saxton ’89

Tony Saxton is the Founder, CEO, and a Managing Partner of Terra Group Holdings, LLC, an opportunistic investment partnership engaged in the creation, acquisition, ownership, management, and operation of game-changing private businesses that provide a positive impact on the world. Terra Group Holdings invests and works with highly sustainable and scalable companies and projects both by providing capital and by delivering value-driven solutions in sustainable product design, sustainable design engineering, technology systems integration, and supply chain analysis. Their efforts and partnerships are centered on tackling some of the world’s most pressing economic, environmental, and conservation-focused issues in agriculture, communications, energy, healthcare, mobility, water, and waste.