By Madeline Skapper ’20
This fall, the Pingry Entrepreneurship Club is gearing up for an exciting second year. The club, led by Noopur Bhatt (V), Madeline Skapper (V), and Nicole Gilbert (V), focuses on providing students with a foundation on entrepreneurial topics to help students create their own business ideas to eventually form their own startup companies.
Last year, the club participated in the MIT LaunchX Mid-Atlantic Regional Event in New York City, an entrepreneurial event where students from across the East Coast gathered to pitch their business ideas to a panel of judges. Twenty-three teams comprised of groups of high school students pitched their ideas to the five judges who gave out four awards. Pingry brought two teams to present at the event. MyEcoWears, LLC. is an online sustainable clothing company founded by Bhatt, Skapper, Gilbert, and Emma Huang (IV). Petgradable is a company that advertises environmentally conscious pet products created by Rita Harrobin (V), Alesia Paliwoda (IV), and Kate Overdeck (IV). (Udochi Emeghara (VI) was a part of Petgradable as well, but was not able to attend.) The MyEcoWears, LLC. team won the “Most Customer Engagement” award at the event for the business plan pitch.
This year, the club is looking for more students interested in entrepreneurship or business to join and form their novel company ideas. The club plans to host an entrepreneurial panel as well as attend entrepreneurship events during the year where students will have the opportunity to present their own company ideas. These opportunities provide students with unique experiences in the world of business, which are not accessible to every high school student. The events are also an effective way to practice public speaking, as the pitches are presented to a large audience and judges.
The successful 2017-2018 school year was a great introduction for the Entrepreneurship Club, and they know this year will be even better. The club will adapt based on last year’s successes, as they plan to spend more time on the business creation process and learning about entrepreneurial concepts. The club is excited to see what creative company ideas students will come up with this year.