Two Hudson Valley Teams Successful in Entrepreneurship, Business Plan Competitions

2023年4月19日

Two student teams from 哈德逊山谷社区学院 participated in the regional New York State Business Plan Competition at the University at Albany on April 1, and one will be moving on to the state finals at Syracuse University later this month.

全州范围内的, intercollegiate competition is divided into a half dozen tracks where students create a business idea and materials to support their concept and then pitch their idea to a panel of judges.

First-year Hudson Valley Entrepreneurship student Marlen Martinez 还有她的女儿, 安德里亚·穆尼斯·马丁内斯, 伦斯勒理工学院MBA学生, competed in the Health and Wellbeing track with their business, 确保记录, a centralized hub for health records that’s designed for parents of special needs children.

的 idea for 确保记录 is close to both women’s hearts. 玛伦的女儿和安迪的妹妹, 娜塔莉, 有特殊需要, and over the years they have struggled with the amount of record-keeping needed for 娜塔莉’s appointments. When the family decided to move from Arizona to New York, the paperwork to get 娜塔莉 set-up with new doctors and therapists, 是艰巨的. Wouldn’t a dedicated software system that can help track and archive appointments, 测试和其他记录, 他们认为, 让所有有这些需要的家庭受益?

“This is an idea we’ve talked about for years,” 安迪 said. “You don’t understand the stress of making sure your child has what they need until you go through it yourself, and that’s why we think there’s not any other businesses addressing this pain point 正确的 now, and why we think we could make this business successful, 因为我们一家人都有这样的经历.”

马伦把这归功于她的创业导论老师, 副教授Jodi Mather, with planting the seed for this foray into product development and for entering the business plan competition.

“My legs were shaking,” Marlen said with a laugh, when asked about getting up in front of the judges. “But Professor Mather was encouraging and telling me I can do it and that it was a great learning experience. 这就是我要从这一切中得到的. 我在学习并建立联系.”

Although the pair will not be moving on to the NYS Business Plan state final competition, their product pitch has already found success in several other collegiate entrepreneurship competitions. 马伦和安迪的点子赢得了 RPI船舶问题推介竞赛 在1月份的比赛中并列第一 RPI改变世界挑战.

“It makes me so happy that we’re able work on this together,” said 安迪. “A lot will depend on whether or not we can get funding to move this product forward, but with everything mom’s learning in the classroom and the experience with these competitions, 这是一次很好的学习经历.”

的 second HVCC team at the regional NYS Business Plan competition included Engineering Science student 卢卡斯减弱, along with Business 政府 majors Sean Sampler, 奥马尔·坎宁安和伊多吉, 他们介绍了自己的业务, FlightWorks软件, 为滑翔机俱乐部设计的应用程序. FlightWorks软件在安全方面排名第二, Power and Mobility track and will advance to the state competition at Syracuse University on April 27.

肖恩表示 the group became friends as members of the college’s Entrepreneurs Club, and when a guest speaker at one of the club meetings outlined the competition, 他们决定以团队的形式来设计一个参赛作品. “One of our goals for the club was to attend and perform well at this competition. 我们每个人都有自己的想法, 但是卢卡斯的想法, 我们决定, 是不是走得更远了，所以我们就这么做了. He is very active in a local glider club but he noticed that their technology is stuck in the 1970s.”

的 idea for the Flightworks Software app is to provide the more than 100 glider clubs in the United States with a user-friendly, digital way to track and archive the data that many currently manage by hand. 航班跟踪时间, 用于拖曳飞机的汽油, membership records – the app could serve as an all-in-one system that also could be expanded upon for use by other flight-based clubs, 滑翔伞或跳伞俱乐部, 例如, 肖恩表示.

肖恩表示 the group met regularly throughout the semester to develop and refine their pitch and when they got to the regional competition, 每个队员都分担了投球的责任. “We went into this competition without any expectation that we would win it but really just for the experience, 这是一次宝贵的学习经历. 同时, we worked hard on this and we’re obviously happy to continue at the state competition.”

的 纽约商业计划竞赛 features regional competitions in New York’s ten Regional Economic Development Council zones – Capital Region, 纽约中部, 北方的国家, 莫霍克河谷, 五指湖区, 纽约西部, 南方层, 孙河, 纽约市和长岛.

“Both groups did a fantastic job representing the college,” Professor Mather said. “确保唱片公司不前进, but their track had the largest number of competitors, 他们都很棒. At the RPI Change the World Challenge a few weeks ago, 确保记录 actually beat the team that won the entire regional NYS Business Plan competition.”