THE SABIN ENTREPRENEURIAL PRIZE PRESENTATIONS
BUSINESS PLAN PRESENTATIONS AND AWARDS EVENT April 29, 2021
THE SABIN ENTREPRENEURIAL PRIZE PRESENTATIONS
AGENDA 7:00pm
Welcome and Introductions
7:05pm
A2Z Tutoring with Q&A
7:25pm
Proteus Sneakers with Q&A
7:45pm
Redivivus with Q&A
8:05pm
The Harvest Home with Q&A
8:25pm
Composting on the Fly with Q&A
8:45pm
Break / Judges Deliberation
9:00pm Awarding of The Sabin Entrepreneurial Prize & Closing Remarks
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.
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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? Christina Mace-Turner P'23 Christina Mace-Turner is an entrepreneur, technologist, and product designer. She founded and led the Global Business Affairs group at Apple and then went on to lead Content Strategy for their Planning team. After a brief stop in venture capital, Christina co-founded True Botanicals, a direct-to-consumer personal care startup, and most recently founded Mab & Stoke, a B2B and direct-to-consumer wellness startup. Christina received a BA with honors in Visual Arts and Semiotics from Brown University and a JD from NYU School of Law. She is a member of the 2011 class of Henry Crown Fellows at the Aspen Institute. Christina is a current parent and lives in Sheffield. Krystal Palmer ’18 Born in Manchester, Jamaica, Krystal graduated from Berkshire in 2018. During her senior year, she participated in the Sabin Entrepreneurial Prize, winning alongside teammates Hannah Weymuller ’18 and Sydney McGill ’18 for their proposed business, CyClean. After Berkshire, Krystal continued her education at Drew University, where she is currently pursuing a BA in Economics and International Relations. She was recently inducted into the Omicron Delta Epsilon Economics Honors Society and the Pi Sigma Alpha Political Science Honors Society. At Drew University, Krystal serves as Chief Financial Officer for Student Government. Her other on-campus positions include Chief Judicial Officer for the Residence Hall Association, Volunteer Coordinator for the Drew Student Voter Project, and Director of Training for Model UN. She attended Columbia University School of Law's African Economic Forum to collaborate on ideas for African Development, which sparked her interest in pursuing a minor in business. Krystal lives in East Orange, NJ. She will spend this summer interning with Bloomberg L.P. as a Financial Product Analytics and Sales intern in New York City. She will also be studying for the LSAT and working on her honors thesis as she prepares for her final semester of college this fall. -Page 4-
Vernon F. Taylor III ’66 Denver raised, Vernon Taylor graduated from Stanford University in 1970 with a BS in Geology/Mineral Engineering. He started and operated companies throughout his professional life, the most recent of which was a private gas pipeline company he co-founded and sold in 2006. He has served as a director or in a management position with the following listed companies: Coca Mines, Chemex Pharmaceuticals, Placer Dome, Inc., Geodome Resources, and Barrington Petroleum, as well as a number of private companies. Mr. Taylor lives in Sagaponack, NY with his wife, Naomi Marks. In addition to serving on Berkshire’s Board of Trustees, Mr. Taylor devotes his time to various investments, as well as developing two projects into a feature film and another into a television series.
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What are the business plans? A2Z Tutoring Michael Frechette ’21 Scott Takacs ’21 Michael Thompson ’21
A2Z Tutoring is an affordable online tutoring service that instantly pairs students with teachers for on-demand academic help on a 24/7 basis. Students can open our website, select which subject they would like assistance with, and immediately connect with an experienced tutor for any help they may need. Similar to Uber, tutors working for A2Z can choose their own hours of availability while receiving an hourly rate for their services. Students also have the option to choose when they want to log onto our site and how much time they wish to spend receiving help, eliminating the red tape of premeditated tutoring sessions that last for multiple hours and are overly expensive. What sets A2Z Tutoring apart from other online programs of this nature is our targeted effort to minimize the devastation that Covid-19 induced remote learning has had on educational progress amongst children in low-income school districts. Selling subscriptions and other cost-effective plans to these public school districts and local governments will help put a dent in this social justice issue that is continuing to grow ever present in our technology-centered modern world.
Proteus Sneakers Reid Curran ’21 Jacob Marlowe ’21 Basil Shillingford ’21
Proteus Sneakers are adjustable sneakers marketed towards children between the ages of six months and twelve years old that allow the wearer to expand and retract the sneaker to its desired, appropriate size. The shoe’s highly durable and adjustable design will make it no longer necessary for parents to buy a new pair of sneakers every time their child’s foot grows to the next size. Proteus Sneakers adjust the shoe’s size within the range of three different sizes per model between 3C and 6Y, with the exception being the model that only incorporates the two largest sizes, 5Y-6Y. The adjustable technology is located within the shoe’s sole and is hidden from view and direct
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contact with the wearer’s foot. In the same fashion of a snapback hat’s adjustable technology that allows the wearer to increase the hat’s diameter, the wearer of Proteus Sneakers would be able to adjust the shoe’s size by simply removing a protective material tab, unclicking the size strip from the selected size and reattaching it to the desired, different size. The size strip is attached directly to the overlapping section located in the middle of the shoe’s sole and upper that is able to be expanded or retracted. The material that composes the shoe’s upper is synthetic leather, which is light, highly durable and abrasion resistant. The material that composes the sole is polyurethane which has highly flexible properties and is light and highly abrasion-resistant, with excellent long-term mechanical properties. As the market our product occupies is completely untapped, Proteus Sneakers is a trailblazing product with massive earning potential, and simultaneously minimizes the economic and environmental burden imposed by parents’ need to continuously buy new sneakers for their children.
Redivivus
Lal Celikbilek ’22 Lindsay Knight ’21 Christina Tao ’21
Over 94 million used disposable masks are being thrown away every single week, with the majority ending as waste in landfills or floating in the sea. This has resulted in a large increase in plastic pollution, potential public health risks from infected used masks, and the emission of greenhouse gases from uncontrolled incineration. To help combat this issue, Redivivus wants to recycle used masks and repurpose them into athletic clothing. Both surgical masks and athletic clothing are made from polypropylene plastic, and through garment recycling technology they can easily be converted into textiles. Our goal is to match the quality of popular athletic brands but at an affordable price. We hope to create a trend that inspires people to be more eco-friendly, raising attention to the importance of sustainable fashion.
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The Harvest Home Henry Alpaugh ’21 Ava Block ’21 Anthony Ierna ’21
The Harvest Home is a mobile app designed to connect consumers and restaurants to sustainably sourced food in their area. In the Harvest Home app, farmers will log on and update their inventory each morning, providing local shoppers with updated information regarding the selection available to customers. The Harvest Home aims to be a hub for sustainable grocery shopping that eases the otherwise time-consuming process of finding eco-friendly produce. We aim to help both the consumer and producer alike, by creating a network that allows farmers to market their product, and shoppers to have that information readily available at their fingertips.
Composting on the Fly Jack Marottolo ’21 Nick Pesce ’21 Marco Wilson ’21 Sam Woessner ’21
Composting on the Fly seeks to combat the numerous harmful impacts that excess food waste has on the environment. Our plan is to become the primary food waste collector for boarding schools initially, with the ability to expand to numerous different institutions as we grow. The collected food will be transported to our base of operations, where we will be breeding Black Soldier Flies to lay eggs and hatch larvae, at a rate of 250-500 eggs per fly. The Black Soldier Fly larvae can eat up to twice their weight in food waste a day over their 18-day span as larvae. These larvae are FDA recommended for poultry diets and will be sold either dried or alive as such to reach a wide range of small animal diets. Composting on the Fly will also filter out the larvae’s waste as they consume the excess food waste. This waste will be used in topsoil to make rich fertilizer that can be sold at a premium as it is completely natural and creates much higher crop yields. Composting on the Fly will reduce food waste entering landfills, and therefore reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
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