 "Photo: Paul Chouy/The Daily Texan")
After about seven months and 500 ideas from thousands of university students around the globe, three teams remained.
The AT&T Executive Education and Conference Center hosted Dell’s 2009 Social Innovation Competition on Thursday night. Three teams of individuals had the chance to turn their ideas into a $50,000 prize.
“Originally, I had no experience in education or entrepreneurship,” said Jason Shah, a student from Harvard University. “I visited my sister, who worked for Teach For America, and sat in on one of her classrooms. I realized her students were so far behind and that they deserve the same level of resources and opportunities that I had.”
Shah’s project, INeedAPencil.com, is designed to offer free online SAT preparation for low-income high school students.
Shah said his experiences working with low-income students in the classroom made him recognize the need for such a program.
“I worked with one student who couldn’t spell the word ‘ball’ as an 11-year-old,” he said.
The second finalist, Gardens for Health, is a project that works with HIV-positive individuals in impoverished communities to improve their nutrition levels by providing low-cost agricultural initiatives.
“We have helped establish nine legally recognized agricultural cooperatives,” said Emily Morrell, one of the project members and a student at Yale University. “They have raised about $6,500 in cooperative income. Most of the individuals live on less than $2 a day, so this has had a big impact.”
The final team in competition for the grand prize was Embrace, a nonprofit organization that has designed a low-cost incubator for use in developing countries. Team member Linus Liang of Stanford University described his goals for the future.
“We are taking this project further,” he said. “We are moving to India in three weeks to get the product out to the market. Hopefully, by 2010 it will be in doctor’s hospitals and clinics.”
The event was judged by a panel of experts that narrowed more than 500 entries down to three.
After the teams presented their proposals to the audience, the judges announced Gardens for Health as the winner.
“We promise to pay this forward,” said Emma Clippinger, the project’s other founder and a student at Brown University.
The students were presented with the $50,000 check and took the stage to a loud applause from the audience.
All three of the finalists plan to continue to work on their ideas and appreciate the exposure they have gained from the competition.
“This has forced me to think hard about the concrete actions that we take and to really measure the effect that we have,” Shah said. “This competition has challenged me to realized what we are doing and what we need to do better.”
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