Bay Area student entrepreneurs compete for grant money, chance to pitch idea to ‘Shark Tank’ investor
PALM HARBOR, Fla. - The next new app that you download may be developed by a few high school students from the Bay Area.
Twenty-one teams, a total of 90 students, competed in a youth tech competition that’s now down to five finalists. It’s part of the 2023 Next Gen Tech 360 competition that Robyn Mussler and her non-profit, Connect-IT 360, started eight years ago in partnership with the Pinellas Education Foundation.
"Our approach to entrepreneurship is through developing products, so it’s the product development lifestyle, human-centric designs so that way we take them from ideation to actually building a product," Mussler explained. "They come to us with a real-world problem that they want to solve with technology and through the program, our incredible business mentor community, we help them make that happen," she said.
High school students work with business mentors during a seven-month afterschool program to develop an idea for an app. They pitch their products to business leaders like they did Friday night.
Students compete for a chance to pitch their idea to an investor.
The winning team gets a $10,000 grant to help launch their product, and the chance to pitch it to one of the original sharks from the show "Shark Tank."
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"This is about developing local talent and allowing our kids to have the necessary tools not just to survive, but to thrive," Mussler said.
Three teams are from Palm Harbor University High School in Pinellas County, and two are from Tampa high schools, Strawberry Crest High School and Carrollwood Day School.
Their ideas include an app that lets people collaborate to make music, one that helps you figure out what to cook with what you have in your fridge, one that helps you with taxes, another helps small businesses with time management and the last group connects high schoolers to college counselors and students majoring in the field they’re interested in.
The winner receives a $10,000 grant and a chance to pitch their idea to a 'Shark Tank' investor.
These students said win or lose, the program has given them a leg up.
"I feel like this program really steps up to the next level because not only am I applying interpersonal skills like a team, I’m now applying it with people of much higher positions," Rocco Melchiorre, a finalist from Palm Harbor University High School, said. "I’m making business connections and learning how to communicate from a business standpoint and learning how to lead more and in a better more effective way and serve the community."
"Personally, I think that all high school students should have it [the program]," Mussler stated. "It really doesn’t matter what career path they have, tech is woven in the fabric of what we do in both our personal and professional lives and so, so much of what we’re teaching them is life skills."
90 students took part in the youth tech competition which is down to five finalists.
The students agreed and said the program has taught them not just how to develop a product, but several skills to be successful in life overall.
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"We’re not afraid to fail and just learning and learning because failure is how you learn, so taking in that information here, getting that experience just out in the real world is really cool," Nitya Padmanabhan, a finalist from Strawberry Crest High School, said.
"I think it’s really important," Morgan Allen, a finalist from Carrollwood Day School shared. "It really gives us a realistic expectation of what the real world is actually like and getting feedback from people who work in these careers and possibilities for our future is just so important."
The winning team will also get a paid trip to the youth entrepreneurial global competition in San Diego for the chance to win even more prizes.
The final round of the local competition will be in April at the University of Tampa where the winner will be chosen.