The Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurial Development (CIED) at Clark Atlanta University is excited to announce that for two consecutive years, our student teams have won the national round of the Blackstone Launchpad Ideas Competition with a grand prize of $10,000!
The competition has four categories in which students from all disciplines across campus were invited to compete: Social & Climate Impact, Health & Life Sciences, Consumer Products & Services, and General. Clark Atlanta University had 57 submissions, -- a record number of submissions for schools with fewer than 10,000 students.
Clark Atlanta University is one of the black colleges supported by the Black College Fund which provides financial support to maintain solid, challenging academic programs; strong faculties; and well-equipped facilities.
Four teams represented CAU at the national competition, vying against 50-plus member universities, including Cornell University, University of Texas at Austin, Southern California University, UC Berkeley, UCLA, and Syracuse in the Blackstone Launchpad network.
Bianca Colon-Perez, a Business Administration Major with a concentration in management and founder of Nutriflash, placed first in the Health & Life Sciences category. Nutriflash is a mobile application that assists people with meal tracking depending on dietary needs. Users can customize the app based on their dietary needs and take pictures of restaurant menus. Bianca will receive a $10,000 prize added to the $1,000 she received during the CAU campus round.
“We’re so proud of the creativity and hard work demonstrated by Bianca and all of our student innovators at CAU,” said Dr. Bruce Berger, Director of the Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurial Development. “This is one of the reasons this center exists. We help students with ideation and encourage them to bring it to life.”
The Ideas Competition is a virtual business plan competition powered by our partner, StartupTree, and was designed for students with no prior entrepreneurship experience. The competition was created so that any student, no matter their major or career plans, could practice the essential skills of distilling and presenting a latent idea.
The CIED extends a special thank you to the Blackstone Launchpad Charitable Foundation, a key supporter of the CAU Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurial Development.
Clark Atlanta University website, Atlanta, GA
One of seven apportioned giving opportunities of The United Methodist Church, the Black College Fund provides financial support to maintain solid, challenging academic programs; strong faculties; and well-equipped facilities at 11 United Methodist-related historically black colleges and universities. Please encourage your leaders and congregations to support the Black College Fund apportionment at 100 percent.
