Business Competition Funds Winning Ideas
Published: February 17, 2015 | Author: Brittany Cecil | Read Time: 2 minutes
Students from Southern Utah University submitted their business ideas and won in the ninth annual Best Business Idea and Opportunity Quest competitions. With ideas ranging from a website tailored to college student’s needs to vertical gardening, each idea helping pave the way for students to have entrepreneurial success.
Winning in two categories and taking home $3,000, Fas Lebbie, a finance and pre-dental major from Sierra Leone, Africa, patented his idea of zip-top (swap top) shoes, and won big in both the Best Business Idea and Opportunity Quest competitions.
The most unique aspect of Lebbie’s zip-top shoes is that it helps fund the Fas Movement, a non-profit business Lebbie founded to help underprivileged children from his home country.
Through the nonprofit, Lebbie teaches children literacy, health, and how to skate board and surf, and the shoes are helping fund that movement. Lebbie said, “This shoe idea is new, and I hope that it can help advance this charity group.”
Along with Lebbie, accounting major Jordan Leavitt saw a need he could help fill through Classy Yeti, a website that helps student buy and sell textbooks and other items needed for college life. Leavitt was awarded honorable mention in the Opportunity Quest competition.
Another SUU student saw lucrative effects from his vertical gardening idea. Nick Hammer, architecture major from Cedar City, is the creator of The Garden Awning, a type of vertical gardening to help those who have little space to plant a garden. Hammer took third place in the Opportunity Quest Competition, quite the feet knowing he heard about the competition a day before the deadline.
He said of the opportunity, “It was an honor to be a part of this competition and share my idea.”
The Best Business Idea Competition and Opportunity Quest Competition are coordinate by SUU Small Business Resource Center, a service that not only aids college students but local businesses to help launch their ideas and stimulate the economy.
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