{"id":1954,"date":"2021-12-20T20:51:31","date_gmt":"2021-12-20T20:51:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.uml.edu\/differencemaker\/?p=1954"},"modified":"2021-12-20T20:53:34","modified_gmt":"2021-12-20T20:53:34","slug":"2021-differencemaker-high-school-idea-challenge","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.uml.edu\/differencemaker\/2021\/12\/20\/2021-differencemaker-high-school-idea-challenge\/","title":{"rendered":"2021 DifferenceMaker High School Idea Challenge"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

On December 15th, DifferenceMaker\u00ae held its 3rd Annual High School Idea Challenge from 9am-1pm at UMass Lowell\u2019s Haverhill Innovation Hub.<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

To kick-off the event, Gina Mustoe, teacher, Westford Academy<\/a>, gave opening remarks. She then passed the stage to Holly Lalos, Director, Rist DifferenceMaker Institute<\/a>. Holly presented an overview of DifferenceMaker, sharing the benefits and opportunities the program offers. This was followed by a presentation of the Haverhill Innovation Hub by Stephanie Guyotte, Associate Director, Haverhill Innovation Hub. Then, Holly introduced the judges and emceed the event.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The judges were:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Katie Harrington, Co-Founder, Ambulatory Innovations<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Siddhant Iyer, Founder, TrueFIT<\/a> <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Donna Mcfadden, Massachusetts DECA<\/a> State Advisor <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tatiana Tompkins, team member of Protected Pin<\/a> & NoSno Mat<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Andy Vargas, Massachusetts House of Representatives<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/a>
Judges, from left to right, Donna McFadden, Katie Harrington, Tatiana Tompkins, Siddhant Iyer, Andy Vargas.<\/strong><\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

After the judge introductions, the event began. The audience was excited to hear the creative ideas from each high school student team. Each pitching team had 5 minutes to present, followed by 5 minutes of judge Q&A. After the presentations, the judges deliberated.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/a>
Dan Alexander and Neev Maru, representing Westford Academy, pitching their product MC3D.<\/strong><\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Congratulations to all teams that presented and won awards!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

1st place, $500<\/strong> – Mya Doucette, Gaby Guimaraes, Zach Medailleu, and Gabriel Olafsson, Essex North Shore Agricultural & Technical School \u2013 \u201cZuMix\u201d \u2013 a healthy, organic snack.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

2nd place, $300<\/strong> – Dan Alexander and Neev Maru, Westford Academy \u2013 \u201dMC3D\u201d \u2013 an educational STEM-based camp for kids.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

3rd place, $200<\/strong> – Callum Mond, Declan Mond, and Matt Weinfurt, Nashoba Regional High School \u2013 \u201cBoxletics\u201d \u2013 sports games and equipment delivered regularly to customers doorsteps.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Honorable Mention, DifferenceMaker gear (t-shirt, pen, lanyard, water bottle, notebook)<\/strong> – Isha Macha and Morgan Smith, Westford Academy \u2013 \u201cI&M Solutions\u201d \u2013 safe and effective teeth whitening solution.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After the presentations, lunch was served, and round table mentor meetings took place between college DifferenceMaker teams and the high school teams. Each high school team had a 15-minute mentor session with the DifferenceMaker college students. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Thank you to the DifferenceMaker teams who volunteered their time to support and inspire the high school students:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

BenjiBall<\/a>, Benjamin McEvoy and Edward Morante <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Digital Life<\/a>, Smriti Kumar, Alejandra LunaJuarez, Amy Nguyen and TinaThuy Nguyen <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Green Fertilizer<\/a>, Benard Tabu and Visal Veng <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Smart Escape<\/a>, Noah Boudreau and Kevin Healy <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Terminus<\/a>, Ariel Shramko<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Thank you to DECA Inc. <\/a>for sponsoring the event prizes. Another thanks to all partnership schools and teachers involved in this collaboration.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To view photos of this event, please visit DifferenceMaker social media:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

LinkedIn: DifferenceMaker<\/a> <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Twitter: @difference_UML<\/a> <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Instagram: @differencemakeruml<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Facebook: umldifferencemaker<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On December 15th, DifferenceMaker\u00ae held its 3rd Annual High School Idea Challenge from 9am-1pm at UMass Lowell\u2019s Haverhill Innovation Hub. To kick-off the event, Gina Mustoe, teacher, Westford Academy, gave opening remarks. She then passed the stage to Holly Lalos, … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":827,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.uml.edu\/differencemaker\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1954"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.uml.edu\/differencemaker\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.uml.edu\/differencemaker\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.uml.edu\/differencemaker\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/827"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.uml.edu\/differencemaker\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1954"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.uml.edu\/differencemaker\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1954\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1960,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.uml.edu\/differencemaker\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1954\/revisions\/1960"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.uml.edu\/differencemaker\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1954"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.uml.edu\/differencemaker\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1954"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.uml.edu\/differencemaker\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1954"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}