Fostering a bright future: Epsilon Shark Tank

If children are the future, we certainly have a promising one—especially considering the participants of Epsilon’s first Shark Tank-style program held in a partnership with the Boys & Girls Clubs of Stoneham & Wakefield. Epsilon hosted an exciting and inspiring event for middle school-aged Boys & Girls club members to teach them about business planning and foster creative thinking encouraging them to come up with their own business start-up ideas. Participants were paired with Epsilon associates who mentored them throughout the process, helped them formulate business ideas and offered guidance on individual business plans.

Participants presented their ideas on June 13^th, to a panel of judges made up of senior leaders at Epsilon, who provided feedback on whether or not they would consider investing in their start-ups. Some of the innovative and creative businesses included ‘High-tech Helpers’ a robot designed to help adults and people with disabilities perform everyday tasks, “Never Miss a Shot” a Bluetooth enabled sleeve and goggles that helps basketball players better direct their shots and ‘Fab Protection’ a customizable phone case for any device. The innovative ideas for new products and services as well as the maturity level of participants’ presenting skills was inspiring and impressive.

Jiovanni Lucianni, the winner of the competition created, Bella Luna, solar paneled lanterns for patios, backyards and other outdoor uses. His inspiration to create these unique lanterns came from his aunt who had cancer, and “lit the way” for him. Jiovanni plans on giving a portion of his proceeds to cancer research and organizations. Many of the participants had plans to donate portions of their businesses to charity. The desire to give back is a common characteristic among Generation Z. In addition to Jiovanni’s inspiring and positive company mission, he had an extremely thorough business plan with realistic ways to market the product and expand, as well as a quantitative analysis of his business. Impressively, at the time of the event he already sold product to 10 customers and hoped to expand his sales.

This program was the unofficial launch of Epsilon’s Summer of Service, which encourages Epsilon associates across the globe to give back through time, money and goods. As Anthony Guardia, the director of development for the Boys & Girls Clubs of Stoneham and Wakefield shared at the event, one of the best things you can give children to help inspire them and build their confidence is time. For Epsilon, this event aligned directly with a core value to develop young talent and promote innovation – and we were proud to call the Boys & Girls Club a partner for this event.

We can confidently say all of the young entrepreneur participants have bright futures ahead of them. Thank you to all of the participants for inspiring creativity and innovation.

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For Video 1, click here!

For Video 2, click here!