HGSE Holds Competition for Educational Entrepreneurs

They had to sell their idea for starting an education-focused business in two minutes, the amount of time a person would typically have in an elevator to pitch an idea to someone important.

On April 25, 10 groups of students, all finalists in the Ed School's second annual BRIDGE Educational Enterprise Idea Competition, gathered in a conference room with a panel of judges and pitched everything from an earth-friendly TV show for tweens to a professional development training program for teachers to a global online university. In addition to their ideas, students came armed with marketing plans, cost and revenue projections, and management team wish lists.

In the end, Adena Raub, Ed.M.'08, walked away with first prize for Me Too Productions, a nonprofit that creates videos for children preparing for hospital procedures. Raub says she started writing the project plan in one of her classes, Entrepreneurial Approaches to Educational Publishing, taught by Adjunct Lecturer John Richards.

"I probably never would have entered the competition if I did not take his class," she says, "and I certainly would not have won."

Me Too will create short DVDs that young children watch with parents or hospital staff that explain what various procedures would be like -- being sedated or having an IV inserted, for example. The hope is that the videos, which include puppets and colorful imagery, would  reduce anxiety and encourage children to be open about their concerns.

A one-woman operation, Raub shot the pilot herself, a segment on what it is like to get an MRI, and is currently in the editing phase. With the small seed prize she received for winning the BRIDGE competition, she plans on using the pilot to try to attract investors. Eventually, she will market the DVDs to parents and health care professionals.

In addition to Raub, three other business plans by master's candidates were recognized. Second prize was shared by two green teams: My Footprint, a Facebook-based game that helps teens trace their carbon footprint, created by Rosalie Fay Barnes, Carissa Johnson, Subha Srinivas, and Colleen Manning; and The Green Scene, a reality television show for tweens focused on environmental challenges, created by Jodi Redmond and Janet Shih. Third place went to Edupraxis, a "think-and-do" think tank focused on education challenges in Latin America, created by doctoral students Sergio Cardenas, Eugenia Garduno, Maria Elena Ortega, and Santiago Rincon-Gallardo.

Judges included Keith Collar, executive director of research, innovation, and outreach at the school; Abigail Falik, winner of a similar competition held at the Business School; Janna Taylor, Ed.M.'06; and Lecturer Jim Honan, Ed.M.'85, Ed.D.'89, who says picking winners among such an innovative group was tough.

"We reviewed proposals and heard presentations that were thoughtful and creative," he says. "The Me Too Productions proposal and presentation was focused, thorough, and very well presented."