2018 FAHSS Creative Venture Competition

Last Wednesday, December 5th, the FAHSS Creative Venture Competition was held at O’Leary Library on South Campus. Six teams pitched their creative and innovative ideas to a panel of two alumni judges. The panel consisted of Keith Neal, Class of ’93 and Glenn Morgan, Class of ’86, both alumni from the College of Fine Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences.

To begin the night, Luis Falcone, Dean of the College of Fine Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences, introduced the judges, and thanked everyone who made the event possible. He then gave a brief overview of the format of the competition, and then the presentations ensued.

Frank Talty, Assistant Dean, emceed the competition. The first team to pitch was A New Look at Life Coaching. This team, led by Jack Travis and consisting of Josiah Gennell, and Nisarg Jhaveri, pitched their idea to help those affected by mental illness overcome the personal and financial barriers to recovery, wellness, happiness, and fulfilment in life.

The second group to present was Voter Engagement App, consisting of Emily Yormak, Brendan Clarke, Justin St Louis, and Yonatan Tsivkin. This team’s goal is to create an app with absolutely no political agenda that keeps people posted on politics, so voters can be more knowledgeable and less biased.

The next team to take the stage was Juan Boungou, and Anastasia Forcucci of Innovate Lowell. This group sought to address the lack of opportunity for underprivileged children to learn business skills by implementing them into after-school programs.

Innovate Lowell was followed by Benji Ball, presented by Benjamin McEvoy. His idea was a game similar to wiffle ball that took the baserunning out of it, to cater to children with disabilities.

Benajamin McEvoy pitching Benji Ball

The next team up was Air Align. The team consisted of Daniel Gurfinkel, Alex Barr, Dennon Audette, Frederick Higgins, Alex Infantino, Joe McDonald, Kevin Truong, Michael Hoppe, Nick Dean, and Patrick Pang. This team is creating a soft robotic suit that corrects peoples bad posture habits.

The final team to present was Magnetic Textbooks. This team consisted of Jasmine Bell, Conrad Nelson, and John Lesack and aims to prevent students from having to lug multiple large textbooks to school every day. Their product is a magnetic textbook that students can insert and remove sections of different books, based on what material they will need on that particular day.

After deliberation, the judges selected Benji Ball as the grand prize winner, winning $5,000!

There were many great ideas pitched and we all look forward to seeing the progression of each project.

The judges posing with the New Look at Life Coaching team

A big thank you to the judges for their time, sponsorship and effort, and to everyone who came out and made this night a great success!