Sam Warach was part of a team of University of New Hampshire students at e-Fest 2017. The school hopes to send more teams to the finals next year.
Whether it’s your first e-Fest or you’re returning this year, being part of e-Fest can bring benefits to your school well after the competition ends.
That’s what many of our 2017 participants are finding out, months after they went home from the April 2017 finals. The 25 finalist teams and their advisors left e-Fest2017 with a new toolbox of skills to improve their entrepreneurship programs and entrepreneurial thinking.
“It has been really fun to see how the ‘legend’ of last year’s trip to Minneapolis and St. Thomas has motivated my students,” University of New Hampshire team advisor Andrew Earle told us.
Earle advised a UNH team that included students Sam Warach, TJ Evarts and Max Miller. Their e-Fest 2017 innovation was “NextStep,” a Software As a Service (SAAS) innovation that connects recovering drug addicts with certified sponsors who can provide mentorship and connect addicts with resources that help them heal.
“Our 2017 e-Fest grant really opened up the idea of external competitions for our students,” he said. “As a junior faculty member, it’s hard to prioritize such extracurricular events (even though I clearly see the benefits for my students), but the e-Fest faculty development grant I was fortunate enough to receive last year helped clear some “nights and weekends” time to work with our teams at UNH, and support two entries and one finalist team for the 2017 e-Fest. Having this team be a finalist created a real buzz on campus and I have a number of teams interested in entering this year’s contest.”
Even schools whose teams didn’t win a top prize or even make the finals say they’ve realized benefits from being part of it (more on that in a future post). Sign your school up now (it’s Free)!
