LHS Students Win Cash Prize in Business Competition!
Launch the media gallery 1 playerAubrie Hanna and Gabriel Pinkston’s “In Tune Tutorials” App Idea Wins them $500 in
UNK’s Big Idea Contest!
By: Jessica Hoffman, a junior at Leigh High School
An entrepreneurial spirit pervaded the business room of Leigh High School this week as LHS students had the opportunity to pitch a business venture for judges at the University of Nebraska-Kearney as part of the university’s “Big Ideas” competition on March 30th.
Ms. Jennifer Remmereid’s Entrepreneurship class competed in the competition as part of a class project.
But for two of those students, Gabriel Pinkston and Aubrie Hanna, this turned into more than just a class project, as they were chosen as a Top 10 finalist in the competition and eventually earned 2nd place overall! This earned them a $500 cash prize and $500 scholarships to UNK!
The Big Ideas Competition is a competition that asks young entrepreneurs to think of a big business idea to compete for a prize. The participants all had to record a 2-minute business idea pitch, upload that video to YouTube, and submit their YouTube URL to a University of Nebraska-Kearney website. From there, judges from the university selected the top 10 finalists who participated in a live-streamed pitch event to compete for the grand prize of $1000. The second-place winner received $500, and third the third-place business idea was awarded $250. The prize winners are determined by a popular vote from students, teachers, friends, and family who tuned in to view the event.
Hanna and Pinkston’s big idea was called In-Tune Tutorials: an app that can teach a person ukulele, guitar, and violin with ease. It's affordable, easily accessible, and fun. It also provides aspiring musicians with coaches on-demand, and a tuner to make sure users always "in-tune" with their inner musician.
“It was great to see our students get real-world experience in pitching a business idea to important community leaders,” Ms. Remmereid said. “I'm really proud of the creativity Aubrie and Gabriel used when creating their phone app as their business idea. You can see the passion in their quick pitch, which is the first step to a successful product or service. They are excellent speakers, and it really shows the talent they have.”
Sophomore Aubrie Hanna said, “It was insane to make it as far as we did! I'll admit, I was really nervous for it, but I'm really excited with how it turned out. I'm so glad that we were able to represent Leigh well in the competition!"
Congratulations to Aubrie and Gabriel!