Members of the Perimeter College at Georgia State University team that won the 2024 Community College Innovation Challenge (CCIC) say the academic competition transformed them into entrepreneurs.
More than the top prize, they say that the praise they received during CCIC’s Innovation Boot Camp for their concept of a self-administered cervical cancer test, the encouragement from the CCIC judges to patent their ideas, and the introduction to an economic development organization that another team’s mentor gave them boosted their confidence and led them to launch a start-up company.
Last September the Georgia Perimeter teammates—Shalom Ejiwunmi, Sophia Bereket, and Rakeb Tesfasselasie—formed Gorginea Care LLC. And they recently submitted a provisional patent application.
“Just going to the CCIC in Washington changed our life,” Tesfassellasie said. She is now an industrial engineering major at Georgia Institute of Technology.
Bereket agrees. Now a mechanical engineering major at Kennesaw State University, Bereket cites the team’s pitch practice sessions with three subject-matter experts as the most valuable, but that she said she learned throughout the exhilarating, four-day boot camp.
She said the workshops, particularly on marketing and financing, were very informative. “We were able to see things from a different perspective. So that was really helpful. And also the different types of people we met,” Bereket said.
The teammates said the potential to win cash prompted them to move past complaining about the invasiveness of Pap smear tests to thinking about a device they could make that would be better for women. Ejiwunmi, who identified the Pap test as problem, is now in a combined bachelor’s-master’s degree public health program at the University of Georgia.
Find out how you can begin the process of creating something new, vetting your idea, and learning about the CCIC by attending The Community College Innovation Challenge – Student Application Idea Vetting Session from 3 to 4 p.m. (Eastern Time) on February 26. Register here for the free session that is open to all students.
The American Association of Community Colleges offers the CCIC in partnership with the National Science Foundation as an opportunity for two-year college students to win prizes and learn new skills by using science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) to innovate solutions to real-world problems.
The national competition covers the expenses for up to 12 teams of students and their mentors to travel to Washington, D.C., for the Innovation Boot Camp that will be convened June 9 to 12.
During the boot camp the finalist team members learn about strategic communication and other entrepreneurial skills from subject-matter experts. The experts, who make presentations during plenary sessions, also serve as coaches who offer advice to help the students advance their innovative ideas into actual products.
The students also present their innovations to STEM leaders and Congressional stakeholders during a poster session. The competition culminates with each team pitching their innovative concepts to a panel of judges who are industry and entrepreneurial professionals.
Each member of the first, second, and third place teams receives $3,000, $2,000, and $1,000 respectively.
To enter the CCIC, applicants must form a team of two to four students. Ask a faculty or college administrator or staff member to mentor the team. Develop an innovative idea to address a real-world problem using STEM. Describe your innovation in writing and a 90-second video that the team submits to AACC by 11:59 (PDT) on April 3.
Check out a video on the CCIC here.
See more details about how to enter the CCIC here.
Bereket of the Georgia Perimeter team highly recommends CCIC “to anyone who has an idea or an innovation to go out and apply for the challenge. It really does encourage people to create what they’re trying to make.”
Tesfasselasie, another Georgia Perimeter team member said before the awards were announced last June she had decided the boot camp was worthwhile regardless of how the team finished. “Just going through those experiences, doing those things are huge too,” she said.
Bereket explained that the idea for an alternative to physician-administered pap tests came from Ejiwunmi, who was not available for an interview.
The Perimeter College team’s mentor, Associate Professor of Physical Sciences Janna K. Blum, said that last year Ejiwunmi attended a Society of Women in Engineering Conference that included info about healthcare for women. When she learned that a gynecological exam usually includes a physician collecting a Pap smear through use of a metal speculum to examine the cervix and collect cells, she questioned this practice.
While researching their CCIC project the teammates learned that many women avoid going to gynecologists because they consider the Pap test invasive.
Tesfasselasie said at the beginning of the boot camp they talked quietly about their product because they did not want to make people uncomfortable. At the CCIC poster session, however, every woman who talked with them told them it was a great idea. Men expressed surprise that the test, which women are advised to have beginning at age 21, had not been changed since it was developed about 100 years ago.
Then the subject-matter experts who watched their pitch practices recommended the team re-craft their pitches to explain how they came up with their idea and to share data they had found about women disliking Pap tests.
“CCIC gave us a voice and the confidence to say this out loud and to keep pushing this. And too, I think, it made us also see it’s not just the people around us; people who we never met before also can relate to us. So I definitely say it gave us confidence and a voice,” she said.
Professor Blum described the “fantastic” presentation by U.S. Patent Office employee at the boot camp as a catalyst for the team preparing their patent application. “That kind of gave us the ‘It’s possible!’ We weren’t even really sure how far along we needed to be … They convinced us that it’s really the patent is just it’s that design—It’s that idea—And so we realized that we could go forward with that,” Blum said. The teammates continue to refine their invention during virtual meetings from their three campuses; Blum is a pro bono consultant to the LLC.
During the 12-month “patent pending” phase the team will prepare a nonprovisional application, which is the next step for a patent examiner to determine if their invention meets patentability requirements.
