From July 13 to July 24, Coderbunnyz presented the Boss Biz Pitch Fest, a virtual event with monetary prizes for winning business pitches. The contest was open to people from ages 8 and up — 104 people participated in 58 competing teams.
“I came up with a safe place for young people to present their ideas and where young people could feel welcome,” said Samaira Mehta, 12, founder of Coderbunnyz and the Boss Biz Pitch Fest.
Winning $1,000 as the first place winner was Ka Mbeka Foundation’s Evelyn Sitambi, 22, from Zambia, Africa. Sitambi is currently studying Medicine and Surgery at Copperbelt University. On her slideshow presentation, Sitambi shared that she felt troubled over a death of a girl who had congenital syphilis.
“Therefore, I saw the need to create an initiative to ensure every pregnant woman book early for antenatal care services to avoid such preventable deaths,” Sitambi wrote on her slide show.
“I will use the $1,000 to mobilize, mentor and train women of reproductive age on the significance of early antenatal booking and once she books, make necessary follow ups to ensure she has eight antenatal visits as recommended by WHO (World Health Organization),” Sitambi continued, among the things she would do with her prize money.
The second place winner is Healera’s Shivam Garg, 17, from Mumbai, India. Garg described his product, a faucet extension as a device “that automatically switches off the tap when it detects overflowing vessels, automizes taps, measures, and provides detailed analytics regarding your water consumption,” among other features.
“I won $500,” Garg said. “I am going to spend most of it to get this device patented and the remaining will be spent on further product and app development.”
One team of third place winners comprised of Hygieia’s Nishchay Jaiswal, 13, and Sanshray Jaiswal, 10, brothers from Saratoga, and Parth Dama, 13, from San Jose. With the pandemic in mind, these Silicon Valley students created a contactless device.
“We envision our product to be at all essential places at the entrances, so the product can check if a customer walking into a store or office is wearing their mask correctly, if they have a high temperature, and the device can also administer hand sanitization,” Nishchay said.
“We won $250 as our cash prize, and we took that as seed money that will help us build a prototype for the Hygieia,” Nishchay continued. “This product was a huge team effort. I was the CTO (Chief Technology Officer). Sanshray was the CMO (Chief Marketing Officer). Parth was the CFO (Chief Financial Officer).”
Another team of third place winners were sisters Keagan, 12; Ashley, 12; and Kayla Serverius, 14, from Portsmouth, New Hampshire, who run a company called Kid Everest (www.kideverest.com), a COPPA (Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act) compliant crowdfunding platform that is “safe for kidpreneurs.”
“We want Kid Everest to be a premier spot for kid entrepreneurs,” Keagan said. “We won $250. We’re using the money for more matching campaigns. For example, we are sponsors for this auction and we’re doing a match campaign for the kids participating in that.”
Visit https://www.codermindz.com/ for the names of all the winners.
