Author Archive for schwarzop21

Erin Smith Founder of FacePrint

Posted by schwarzop21 
· Wednesday, December 8th, 2021 
· 3 Comments

At the age of 17, while watching a video of Michael J. Fox, Erin Smith noticed something that she couldn’t get off her mind. “Whenever a Parkinson’s patient would laugh or smile, it came off as really emotionally distant,” she says. With this in mind she contacted clinicians and caregivers and found they’d noticed similar facial expressions in some of their patients often years before these patents were officially diagnosed with Parkinson’s. Erin Smith set to work on developing a diagnosis system that uses AI to view changes in facial expressions over time to detect disorders like Parkinson’s. Parkinson’s is a difficult disorder to detect and diagnose but Erin’s new system, which she named FacePrint, has an 88 percent accuracy rate. Erin is receiving support and funding from pharmaceutical companies as well as from the Michael J. Fox Foundation. As one of twenty young innovators selected for the Thiel Fellowship, Erin will be on leave from her university studies while she completes research and her technology undergoes clinical trial at Stanford University, where she is enrolled.

Erin Smith has also done her own TEDx talk which can be watched here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6pS3UftoWpo&t=124s

Erin Smith’s research and innovation is very impressive and inspirational, she saw a possibility to create something that would help people and instantly got to work.

3 Comments
Categories : Millennial Enrepreneuers, Social Entrepreneur, Technology

Gossy Ukanwoke

Posted by schwarzop21 
· Tuesday, November 16th, 2021 
· 1 Comment

Gossy Ukanwoke was born to a teacher father and a pharmacist mother in Umuahia, Abia State, Nigeria where he studied at the Living Word Academy Secondary school. He later obtained a bachelor’s degree in management information systems at Girne American University, Cyprus in 2013. In 2010, while still attending university, Gossy founded the Students Circle Network, an academic social networking service meant to help teachers, students, and institutions to connect, which led ITNews Africa to name him “Africa’s Best Tech Entrepreneur” the next year. After completing his university studies, Gossy founded BAU Research and Development, through BAU he founded Beni American University, the first online university in Nigeria, with the goal of helping to equip students with the skills they need to graduate without the boundaries of a physical learning environment. Later, Gossy launched the Alistair Maine Group to invest in leisure, hospitality, and lifestyle in Lagos. He later was named the Managing Director of Nigeria’s sports betting company, BetKing. Throughout his career Gossy has spoken on entrepreneurship panels, given large keynote addresses, and been invited to speak at a business conference on Africa by the Harvard Business School. Gossy Ukanwoke’s dedication to the improvement of education in Africa as well as his other business endeavors has earned him many accolades and awards including Best Graduating student from Girne American University, Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year Award, Finalist of Young CEO of the Year 2016 award by the Africa CEO Forum, Forbes 30 Most Promising Entrepreneurs 2018, Finalist at Future Awards, and Global Shakers 50 African Innovators to watch.

 

It’s great to see an individual that is so capable in entrepreneurship and uses his experience to not only do well in the business world but also to work towards improving education in his country.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

1 Comment
Categories : Uncategorized
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Timothy Armoo Co-founder and CEO of Fanbytes

Posted by schwarzop21 
· Saturday, October 23rd, 2021 
· 1 Comment

Timothy Armoo is the co-founder and CEO of the social media marketing company Fanbytes. Fanbytes helps brands market on social media platforms used by 13-25 year-olds. Because of the company’s expertise on social media platforms used by Gen Z, Fanbytes advertisements typically outperform traditional ads by 4:1.

Timothy started and sold his own media company at 17 years old, he then used his experience to co-found Fanbytes his second year of college. Timothy has noted that Gen Z has grown up with social media and has a buying power of 150 billion dollars, and so is an unavoidable marketing segment. Timothy Armoo gives this advice:

“Focus on serving the smallest possible market and delight them. It can be easy to think everyone is your customer, but focusing on being incredibly valuable to a small subset of your audience is critical to making you stand out in the market”.

Fanbytes has worked with many companies and organizations including Apple, McDonald’s, and the UK Government. The company has won Timothy Armoo many awards and accolades including:

“Most Influential Person in Marketing and Advertising” – Evening Standard.
“Leading the new school of marketing” – Forbes Magazine.
“Creating the WPP of Gen Z” – Huffington Post.

 

I think Timothy’s advice is very helpful. It’s great to see a company that is so specialized, successful, and has a clear focus on doing what it’s good at.

1 Comment
Categories : Business, Millennial Enrepreneuers, Millennial Entrepreneurs

Josh Feinsilber Founder of Gimkit

Posted by schwarzop21 
· Tuesday, October 5th, 2021 
· 4 Comments

Josh Feinsilber was in high school when he first had the idea for Gimkit. He was brainstorming for a new high school project when he came across the quiz game Kahoot. He realized the concept had potential to be a powerful teaching tool, and with much work and the help of a few other students in his high school, he created Gimkit. Gimkit is a fun quiz learning application that lets teachers create different “kits” that they can use to help students learn and memorize information. Gimkit has proven to be a useful learning tool for many teachers, and it can raise student test scores by as much as 14 percent. Gimkit now has about three million users across 100 countries and in the year of 2019, Josh Feinsilber had a projected net worth of $400,000.

Josh graduated high school in 2019 but he still works as the founder of Gimkit as he is still passionate about helping students learn and teachers teach.

 

I find it very encouraging to see such entrepreneurial thinking at such a young age. I also love the idea of working to make high school more fun and interesting.

 

 

4 Comments
Categories : Business, Great Ideas, Technology, Youngest Entrepreneurs

Sean Belnick founder of BizChair

Posted by schwarzop21 
· Saturday, September 25th, 2021 
· 3 Comments

Sean Belnick created his first website at the age of 14. His stepfather worked as a furniture seller, so Sean had the idea to sell furniture online. Sean went to work and after a couple weeks of research, a website was built with 100 items up for sale. Sean put $500 into advertising, $100 into website hosting, he designed the website himself and called his business BizChair. The business’s sole purpose was to sell office chairs online, and it was a success. Only a few hours after the launch of the advertising campaign, the first order was received. The number of orders grew, BizChair grew, and eventually it expanded from the office chair market and started selling office furniture and home furniture. Sean later stated that he wished he had expanded his market sooner and that if he had done so BizChair could have cemented a larger position as a market leader. Nevertheless, after seven years Bizchair had pulled in $42 million in total revenue. By the age of 20 Sean had created a successful business that made him millions.

 

I love that Sean took his skills and interest in websites and selling things online and applied it to furniture, something his stepfather was familiar with. It is amazing to see someone so young be so innovative and successful.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

3 Comments
Categories : Uncategorized

Eric Bandholz founder of Beardbrand

Posted by schwarzop21 
· Sunday, September 19th, 2021 
· No Comments

Eric Bandholz worked as a financial advisor in Washington state, but the company Eric worked for had a “no facial hair” policy that he was not a fan of, so he left the company to start a beard grooming company. He attended a Startup Weekend event where he met Lindsey Reinders and Jeremy McGee, who would go on to help Eric form the company Beardbrand. Beardbrand sells a variety of beard care products including beard oil and mustache wax. Initially the three of them started with $8,000 and they had to reinvest any profits they earned back into the company for their first 10 months. Beardbrand launched its online store and put a lot of resources towards marketing on online platforms which helped the company to grow. Particularly important is the companies YouTube channel which has over 1,000,000 subscribers and has been essential in helping the company to grow. Eric appeared on ABC’s Shark Tank and although he did not receive any investment money the publicity gained from appearing on the show helped to raise awareness about Beardbrand and increase sales.

 

Seeing that Eric left the safety of his job to pursue something that he’s passionate about is very encouraging. I think Eric is a great example of an entrepreneur taking something that they love and making it into a business.

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Categories : Business::Entrepreneurs, Male Entrepreneurs, Shark Tank