Ilana's Entrepreneurship Story

My Entrepreneurship Story:

  As an Innovation Academy student, I had the opportunity to put my entrepreneurial and innovative skills to the test during the Catalyst competition last summer. Catalyst is a summer showcase in which Innovation Academy students present and create original solutions to a current issue in society. In the summer of last year, the topic that my group was faced with was how could we help improve early childhood development in the state of Florida. In the beginning, we had to do an immense amount of research and determine what specific area within early childhood development would we target. Instead of going the more common route and creating a similar alternative to educational programs such as “Leap Frog” and “ABCmouse”, my group and I decided to build a specifically designed toilet prototype that promoted healthy toddler potty training habits.

  The reasoning behind us creating such an odd and unique product was because we found out that many concerned Facebook group parents were having an issue with their children spreading their feces on the walls and/or eating it. In order to prevent such a disaster from occurring, the toilet that is fully equipped with mechanical flaps and an audio system that plays music, prevents the child from having access to their feces once they stand up and finish their business. The music is ultimately incorporated in the product to create a more pleasurable and fun environment for the child.

  When pitching our idea to the judges and families that attended the Catalyst event, many of them were giving us positive feedback and some of them were telling us of their experiences with their children having messy bathroom habits. We were shocked at the amount of people that had to deal with this issue and realized how beneficial our product would be for parents raising young toddlers.

  Fortunately, our audience was not too weirded out by our idea and our prototype ended up winning the “Best Prototype Award” and “People’s Choice Award”.

My Enrollment:

  I enrolled in this class because it is a requirement for my minor in Innovation and it seems like a useful class for my major in Finance. Although I do not plan on being an entrepreneur, developing and sharpening my entrepreneurship skills will help me promote innovation or positive change within whichever company I decide to work for in the future. Companies are constantly looking for candidates who think “out of the box” and come up with creative solutions to company issues. Through this class, I hope to improve my entrepreneurship skills and apply it to a real scenario.