- Radio Park Elementary
- Radio Park Elementary School
Dream-Learn-Pitch Entrepreneurship Competition
State High business students recently took the top two spots in the annual Dream Learn Sales Pitch entrepreneurship competition at Penn State.
Josh Fragin won first place for his business plan for Hold Up, software that offers 30 listening alternatives to elevator music in nine categories for callers placed on hold. After selecting a category, callers choose from subcategories such as sports trivia, dad jokes and motivational speeches.
“The goal of Hold Up is to make the boring experience of waiting on hold more enjoyable for everyone,” said Fragin’s advisor, State High business teacher Bridget Ciolkosz.
For winning the competition, Fragin received a $10,000 scholarship to the Pennsylvania College of Technology.
Lila Mathias and Grace Shang finished second for creating CommCollab, an app designed to match individuals with organizations to complete community service projects. Organizations can post opportunities to help finish needed projects, providing a handy resource for people who need service hours.
“This app is intended for a large demographic of people, including high school students, honor societies, church groups, sports teams, charity foundations, rotary clubs and much more,” Ciolkosz said. “Lila and Grace believe that CommCollab is the future of community service.”
Dream-Learn-Pitch is administered by the nonprofit Brighter Financial Services, which seeks “to provide K-12 students with economic, personal finance and entrepreneurship skills that elevate their standard of living, quality of life, and professional success” and “showcase talent from business, education and the government.” The DLP competition involves hundreds of students who make video pitches of their ideas.
By Chris Rosenblum