Let’s meet this season’s cohort!
- Venture Name: SWBee Studio, LLC
- Founder: Starin Butler
- Biography: Starin is a Landscape Architect in Phoenix, AZ. She left her job in December 2021 to explore and start her own studio. These past 6 months she has been taking classes, reading books, expanding skills, talking to people, volunteering her services, and putting pieces of her new business in place.
- Venture description: Starin wants to create a successful animal-centered landscape architecture studio focusing on animal sanctuaries and rescues. She wants to offer high-quality design services to rescue organizations at either reduced fees or pro bono.
- Venture Name: HackBAC
- Founder: Delonte Egwuatu
- Biography: Delonte Egwuatu (he/him) currently serves as the Assistant Director of DEI and Upper School Spanish teacher at the Pennington School. Prior to moving to New Jersey, he taught in the Lower and Middle School as a Spanish and Humanities teacher at his alma mater, St. Andrew’s Episcopal School (Potomac, MD). Delonte began his career as a teacher while at Morehouse College, volunteering as a student-teacher in Atlanta Public Schools. In addition to teaching, Delonte is also dedicated to equipping Black and Brown students with the skills to unlock and harness their intellectual and creative genius. During the summer of 2020, Delonte co-founded the Black Alumni Collective, which works to model reconciliation, ensure racial equity and equality, and enrich the experience of Black St. Andrew’s students and alumni through fellowship, advocacy, and mentorship. He leads their signature event, HackBAC, a social justice hackathon.
- Venture description: HackBAC is a social justice hackathon that sits at the intersection of DEB and Design Thinking to design solutions for good. HackBAC inspires and cultivates genius in young leaders of color who innovate for positive social impact. Meaningful mentorship is provided in an affirming and accessible environment that celebrates all identities through the promotion of transformative ideation. In a 3-day, free, virtual, fast-paced competition, groups of 8th-12th grade students ideate on products or services through the several tracks that shed light on current structures that propagate disparity and access to institutions as well as encourage, develop and build literacy around systems of oppression, business, finance, and entrepreneurship. Ultimately, teams will be competing to win up to $2,500 in seed money for their venture.
- Venture Name: HackBAC
- Founder: Jamee Williams
- Biography: Jamee Williams hails from the Washington, D.C. metro area and is currently a second year Physician Assistant student at the University of Maryland Baltimore. In June of 2020, she and a few of her high school classmates founded the Black Alumni Collective (BAC), an organization committed to enriching the experience of Black students and alumni of the St. Andrew’s Episcopal School community through fellowship, advocacy, and mentorship. Since the conception of the BAC, they have been able to raise over $90,000 to create a scholarship fund for Black college students and to fund their annual social justice hackathon, HackBAC.
- Venture description: HackBAC is a social justice hackathon that sits at the intersection of DEB and Design Thinking to design solutions for good. HackBAC inspires and cultivates genius in young leaders of color who innovate for positive social impact. Meaningful mentorship is provided in an affirming and accessible environment that celebrates all identities through the promotion of transformative ideation.
- Venture Name: Easy Oat Burgers™
- Founder: Desirée Calixte
- Biography: Desirée Calixte is a Florida native living in the DMV. Currently, she’s obsessed with her newest mission of developing the best Plant-Based meat alternative option you’ve ever seen! Desirée obtained her B.S. in Public Relations from Florida A&M University and her MPA from Florida International University. Outside of entrepreneurship, she is a wife, daughter, sister, friend, and a homeschooling stay-at-home mom of two.
- Venture description: Easy Oat Burgers™ is a nutritious and delicious dry mix that caters to vegans and meat eaters alike.
- Venture Name: Guilty Consumption
- Founder: Ashante Lindsay
- Biography: Ashante is an experienced chef who ventured into entrepreneurship by founding Guilty Consumption in 2015. She was known for her ability to create amazing cheesecake flavors in Antigua. In 2020 during the pandemic Ashante opened up her first retail store with a variety of desserts including frozen desserts. In March 2022 the retail store had to be closed due to sudden inflation, now Ashante has rebranded and is introducing the plant based market of desserts to Antiguans. The goal is to create better and healthier options in a country which is plagued with diabetes, hypertension and many other diseases from poor diet.
- Venture description: Guilty Consumption is the only plant-based dessert café in Antigua, and its goal is to provide a vegan and health conscious platter to the community. As head baker and sole proprietor, Ashante is focused on providing gourmet desserts that everyone can enjoy. Don’t miss out on the main item, Ashante’s high-quality, dairy-free gelato!
- Venture Name: Alvarez Consulting & Advocacy
- Founder: Yazmin Guevara
- Biography: Yazmin was born in El Salvador and grew up in the USA since the age of 5. She’s an immigrant, a mother of 2 amazing children in their teens, an educator, and an advocate. Yazmin enjoys spending time with family and community is very important to her. She has worked in education for about 10 years, both in the classroom and most recently as an advisor to support students and families with additional support within the school setting. Advocacy is important to her as well, as she grew up watching her mother advocate for bilingual education.
- Venture description: Alvarez Consulting & Advocacy provides families and organizations with bilingual educational services in English and Spanish that will support individuals to make the best family centered decisions in education.
- Venture Name: FoodCourt
- Founder: Talbert Herndon
- Biography: Talbert Herndon is a serial entrepreneur born and raised in the north side of Chicago. He has started a 6 figure multimedia agency in college where he connected college media/marketing students to clients, including Rockwell Automation, Grand Canyon University, and more. He is currently finishing up his last year studying Computer Science with an emphasis in Entrepreneurship. He is also exploring subjects involving AI and machine learning. During college he has been a winner in 3 college level pitch competitions and has continued to advise and help other entrepreneurs. Once he finishes college in April 2023 he plans to go full-time with FoodCourt, his next venture which is going to revolutionize the paper menu.
- Venture description: FoodCourt is the first ever open interactive menu platform that allows you to leave reviews and photos of your favorite foods. With our simple to use menu builder, restaurants can integrate our platform with their restaurant and leverage to rank their food and gain exposure, but that is only the start. Restaurants can use collected data for a full suite of marketing with retargeting tools such as emails, coupons, and even organic reach. From creating a virtual menu to managing your online reputation, our platform is designed to help your business succeed online.
- Venture Name: Learners Emerge Preparatory, LLC
- Founder: Tiescheka Stuart
- Biography: Tiescheka is a mother, teacher, friend, and entrepreneur. She is the founder of Learners Emerge Preparatory, an upscale learning center that provides educational services for low to middle income families. She was afforded the opportunity to work in the education industry for 15 years, and during her tenure it became disconcerting to see so many minority children grappling with reading and math. This put a strain on her method of teaching, as many of the 10th grade students that she taught were reading at the 2nd or 3rd grade levels. Tiescheka’s heart bled, realizing those students were not prepared to face the world or participate in collegiate courses. However, she was not deterred as this experience allowed her to rely on creativity to tailor lessons to the students’ needs. This experience also gave birth to the learning center.
- Venture description: Learners Emerge Preparatory is a personalized educational service for underrepresented youth. From one-on-one tutoring to individualized learning plans, Learner Emerge Preparatory focuses on providing essential technical skills to students from kindergarten to fifth grade.
- Venture Name: Roots Naturals Cosmetics
- Founder: Allisson Romo
- Biography: Allisson is an Ecuadorian cosmetologist and dermocosmetic technician. 10 years ago she founded and created Roots Naturals cosmetics, a company that develops and produces natural handmade skincare products.
- Venture description: Roots Naturals Cosmetics is a brand that develops and produces natural handmade skincare products. It is important for the brand to use raw materials that have not been tested on animals.
