By: Lexie Newhouse
On November 27, the Andrew Young School of Policy Studies and the Entrepreneurship and Innovation Institute collaborated to host the Social Enterprise Concept Competition at LaunchGSU. Students from Dr. Nelson Pizarro’s Scientific Perspectives on Global Problems course “Social Innovation and Enterprise for Global Problems” participated in the competition, pitching innovative ideas with a social component.
Each team had the opportunity to pitch their idea within a three-minute long presentation. The lineup featured 11 teams including: B4B Bang 4 Your Buck, Different Doesn’t Mean Broken, E-Engines Install Corp, Good Trash, Protecting Our Little Ones, Petite Model, Mental Illness in Minority Communities, MusiLinguistics, Jackie’s House, Thrift & Flip and Hope.
Bang 4 Your Buck (B4B) strives to reduce plastic toy waste by creating an online marketplace to resell used toys. This 20-billion-dollar industry proves to operate at the expense of the environment due to those ever-evolving consumer trends. As new toys are released, B4B will serve as that platform to give “old” toys a new life.
Different Doesn’t Mean Broken focuses on Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) inclusion by opening daycares and aftercare centers to provide children with ASD the opportunity to succeed. Currently, there are only 200 facilities of type across 32 states in the US with only one location in the Atlanta area. Nationally, 17 in 1,000 children will have ASD.
E-Engines Install Corp aims to reduce excessive air pollution and its health-related consequences by installing electric motors in vehicles, where 2.7 million premature deaths are attributed to traffic air pollution. This fuel engine replacement also addresses the challenge of increased gas prices.
Good Trash plans to reduce pollution in the ocean by manufacturing biodegradable plastic. Currently, the US contributes over 710 billion pounds of waste with plastic taking 500 to 1,000 years to degrade. One million sea bird and 100,00 marine animals are killed annually as a result of plastic waste.
Protecting Our Little Ones tackles injustice and abuse in childcare facilities as a result of poor staff oversight and training. By implementing the use of body cameras within those childcare facilities, Protecting Our Little Ones aims to ensure the protection of children.
Petite Model is an agency that advocating for diversity and inclusion within the modeling industry by providing a network for models to find alternatives to runway work, sharing that thousands of young women across the globe are impacted by discrimination from directors and agencies.
Mental Illness in Minority Communities (MINC) is committed to raising awareness of mental health disparities among minorities and providing minorities with access to health mental health resources. Through their mentorship network, MINC anticipates having individual and group counseling sessions available at schools, churches and community centers with psychologists, social workers and therapists.
MusiLinguistics is an app devoted to authentic language acquisition and culture through music. By targeting individuals interested in learning new languages, the app provides lyrics, translations and explanations of songs. As new songs are released, users constantly have renewed interest in learning new vocabularies.
Jackie’s House is a transitional housing facility offering private living spaces, hot meals and career resources. With 7,000 people in homelessness in Atlanta and only nine homeless shelters to serve those individuals within the area, Jackie’s House recognized the need for additional facilities to support this population through the establishment of micro-apartments.
Thrift & Flip introduced the idea of “fast fashion” as the process of fast manufacturing, fast buying and fast disposal of clothing. This unsustainable trend continues to present environmental consequences and perpetuates poor working conditions. To promote their mission of environmental and employee rights advocacy, they plan on creating an online marketplace that sells secondhand trendy and affordable clothing in an effort to reduce clothing consumption.
Hope closed out the pitches with a solution to combat homeless in the state of Georgia. On average, 10,174 people are homeless on a given night statewide. Hope anticipates leveraging prevention, government policy, and people’s overall generosity to create donation collection and distribution centers across college campuses.
Visit eni.gsu.edu and follow @enigsu for more pitching-centric stories, resources, and events!
