Stepping in front of the judges as the last group to present his project, junior Daniel Jacobson was excited to finally share his business idea with the high school. He knew that winning the competition could mean a $1000 prize that could be used to develop his business, and he hoped to be able to bring the company he cared so much about to life.
Five teams of two-four students participated in this shark tank style program, developing business models that address social issues. Other teams created projects encouraging climate-friendliness in grocery stores through a star rating system, and creating a school shooter detection system to quickly and effectively direct first responders to the area of need.
The shark tank program took place on Jan. 15 to showcase the inventions that the Sharon and Jacob (z”l) Benus Social Entrepreneurship Fellows had been working on for the past four months. Each group of fellows presented their business ideas to three judges who were all CESJDS parents, to compete for a $1000 prize.
This fellowship was created this past summer to promote social entrepreneurship and community involvement through JDS. This goes hand in hand with one of the school’s core values, Tikkun Olam.
“It was very interesting to see the kind of underlying topics that they chose based on what they thought was the most prevalent need to kind of focus on in society and in their personal communities,” Social Entrepreneurship Coordinator and Assistant Director of Athletics Matthew Landy said.
Jacobson, teamed up with juniors Leo Steindecker, and Coby Schlactus and senior Yedidya Milner-Gillers, created Storybridge. Storybridge is an Artificial Intelligence (AI) prototype designed to write biographies about senior citizens, preserving their stories for future generations. Ultimately, their team won the competition after a short deliberation from the judges.
“I was very confident in our presentation,” Jacobson said. “But there was a fear, because we had many good competitors… and they all did a really great job.”
He felt especially good because he and his teammates had spent so long working on the project. It was rewarding for him to be able to present something they all cared about so much and to have their work validated, and enjoyed dedicating time to this fellowship.
“I feel like our group members all really understood our product and we’re passionate about it, [so] it wasn’t too stressful to go in front of the school and the sharks,” Jacobson said.
In their presentation, the group addressed companies that have similar missions and listed the reasons that Storybridge would outperform each company, including that the competitors are often inconvenient for the user, or very expensive. They also talked about the cost estimates of their product and explained how they created a prototype of their product.
Sophomores Noah Sacks and Grant Levy had an idea with a similar target audience of senior citizens, intending to create an app for seniors to have more social interaction. After interviewing some seniors at the Ring House, Sacks and Levy found that it can be hard for seniors to find people to spend time with and find activities to do, creating a feeling of loneliness.
“We decided to create this project because after a long time of brainstorming, we were thinking about our own grandparents, and seniors… that was very important to us,” Sacks said.
Sacks also said that presenting was a very good experience, because he believes that the criticism he received from the judges will help him further improve his project. Although he didn’t win, he and Levy had decided to continue their project no matter what, so their confidence in their idea would not be hindered by the results of the competition.
“It’s a privilege to have that pressure and to be able to go out there and present something that you feel really passionate about,” Sacks said.