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PENN STATE MONT ALTO
Student’s e-Commerce startup inspired by love of agriculture, technology BY PENN STATE NEWS MONT ALTO, Pa. – A lifelong love of agriculture and an affinity for technology proved to be a fertile combination for Jake Marshall Grim, the first Penn State Mont Alto student to win the annual Mont Alto LaunchBox LION Tank™ competition. The 21-year-old junior received $1,500 for winning the fourth annual “Shark Tank”-like event on March 25, which was virtual for the first time. He created Table Rock Markets, an e-commerce platform designed to help local farmers increase produce sales by connecting them with consumers in an online marketplace. Each of the top three presenters received grants, a year’s access to the Mont Alto LaunchBox and additional services to help get their products into the marketplace. The competition is staged by LaunchBox, an innovation hub funded by a seed grant from the Invent Penn State initiative.
While he liked the creativity and problem-solving aspects of engineering, he yearned for more of an entrepreneurial outlet. He found it when the COVID-19 pandemic changed the world in 2020. His first enterprise began in April 2020, when he made 900 face shields with foam and plastic for organizations that were helping to fight the coronavirus. He was enrolled in the business administration program at Harrisburg Area Community College at the time. A month later, he created the QR Menu System (www. qrmenusystem.com) to help The Pub & Restaurant in Gettysburg, Pa., which his mother, Lisa Grim, has owned for almost 30 years. It prevents the need for expensive, bacte-
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Grim grew up on a farm in Biglerville, Pa., where the family raised horses and now grows vegetables and flowers, so agriculture is part of his personal history. While a student at Biglerville High School, he was in competitions held by the National FFA Organization at the state and national levels and in 2019 was awarded the FFA American Degree, the highest honor presented by the organization. The digital world is also part of Grim’s history, as evidenced by his participation in the Technology Student Association while in high school. Table Rock Markets – the moniker is a nod to Table Rock Road, on which he and the grandfather for whom he is named grew up – is a marriage of those areas of interest. “I kind of like tying the two together,” said Grim, a business management and marketing major at the Mont Alto campus. In October 2019, when he was a student at Virginia Tech, the fresh fruits and vegetables surrounding him at a grocery store caused him to shift his focus away from the electrical engineering he was studying back to what he enjoyed most.
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