Three teams from the Arkansas School for Mathematics, Sciences and the Arts have qualified for the 20th annual Arkansas Governor’s Cup College Business Plan Competition.
The competition is designed to increase student appreciation for the challenges associated with developing a viable business offering for a product or service. The majority of teams are from undergraduate and graduate programs at various Arkansas colleges and universities. ASMSA is the only high school competing in the competition.
All three ASMSA teams — Breathables, GenDrive and Fail Safe — qualified for the Undergraduate Division Semifinals. Twelve teams earned a spot in the semifinals. Only one other school in the state — Harding University in Searcy — qualified as many teams for the competition. Fail Safe also qualified as an Innovation Division Undergraduate Finalist.
Semifinal and final competitions were scheduled to be held March 19-20 at the Little Rock Regional Chamber. Those events will be held virtually instead as the result as the state limits the number of people who can gather for an event in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. A luncheon to announce the winners that was scheduled for April 9 has been canceled.
Breathables is a team created by juniors Gabe Bissland of Lonoke, Yug Shah of Marion, Alec Gatewood of Smackover and Alex Guo of Jonesboro. Breathables aims to provide customers a convenient, long-term use face mask with replaceable filters, a comfortable and aesthetically pleasing desing, and a personalizable template. The company would serve as a link between technology, creativity and community by offering a product that fits a user’s lifestyle and grows from just a protective measure to an everyday necessity that is both socially and ecologically fulfilling.
Breathables started as an idea to create more comfortable and effective masks for pediatric oncology patients. Through the research process the team members conducted as part of their entrepreneurship capstone class at ASMSA, the students recognized that obtaining regulatory approval for a medical device was intensive and that there was a huge potential market in Asia. The team began working on the project before the COVID-19 pandemic.
GenDrive’s team is comprised of juniors Eli Fisher of North Little Rock, Hunter Thompson of Magazine, Ani Watson of Fayetteville and Bryson Austin of Little Rock. GenDrive is a white-label enterprise database software solution that reduces insurance company liability on high-risk youth drivers by providing personalized, “real-time” data allowing companies to deliver immediate savings and a premium experience to customers. It leverages current technology such as telematics devices as well as public and self-reported data to create a personalized safety score for youth between the ages of 12 and 18. This information is delivered to insurance companies and consumers.
Fail Safe’s team members are seniors Dawson Jones of Hot Springs, Vraj Modi of Hot Springs, Luke Stouffer of Fort Smith and Cam Elliott of Hot Springs. The Logout-Tagout (LOTO) process is a manufacturing safety protocol that “locks down” a piece of manufacturing equipment when it malfunctions so that it is safe to be worked on. Fail Safe aims to increase worker safety in factories through its modernized LOTO management technology that increases efficiency and safety through a robust barcode system that verifies the LOTO steps were property executed.
Two members of Fail Safe — Jones and Modi — competed in 2019’s Governor’s Cup competition, reaching the finals and placing in the top 6 of the undergraduate division. After their success, they were approached by a local manufacturer to build an app for a problem that it was experiencing. After an on-site assessment and analysis, the team developed a proposed solution based on direct customer research that became Fail Safe.
Steve Rice, entrepreneurship instructor at ASMSA, praised the work of the student teams, both in and outside the classroom, as they prepared for the competition.
“It has been incredible to see the growth of the students in just a few short months across a couple of semesters,” Rice said. “Challenges like the Governor’s Cup stretch the students beyond their comfort zones. Again and again, they prove that once they’ve been stretched, their ability to succeed at the highest level is amplified.”
The 2019 competition was the first year a high school team — Team Pedagogue from ASMSA which included Jones and Modi with fellow students Solomon Ni and Victoria Hwang —was allowed to compete in the undergraduate division semifinals. The team made it to the finals. To have three teams make it to the semifinal stage is encouraging to Rice.
“As an educator and cheerleader, it’s rewarding to see the program gaining momentum,” he said. “At the same time, it’s even more rewarding to see students take on bigger and bigger risks as they push themselves toward excellence.
“This is an invaluable experience to have at seventeen or eighteen years of age. It’s cool to see them solving problems right here in the community and exploring launching a business serving customers just a few miles from our school’s doorsteps.”
For more information on the competition, visit https://arcapital.com/governors-cup/.