Johnston County student entrepreneurs win Innovation Challenge award

A team of freshmen from Johnston County Early College Academy won the $2,000 first prize in the 2015 Innovation Challenge on Monday for their proposal to increase access to healthy foods at reduced cost. The student team from City of Medicine Academy was awarded $1,000 for second prize.

Innovation Challenge winners - 2015 Johnston County — The winning team from Johnston County Early College Academy poses with NC New Schools President Tony Habit (left), Principal Brandon Garland (right), Cisco’s Sanjay Pal (third from right), the team’s teacher Amanda Rowland (second from right) and contest judges.

The four Johnston County students — Raul Cruz, Colin Garcia, Aaron Penny and Georgia Price — presented their proposal to a panel of industry professionals on April 13 during a national STEM education conference held at the Sheraton Imperial in RTP. They competed against three other teams from their school along with teams from City of Medicine Academy (Durham), Edgecombe Early College, Wake STEM Early College and Yadkin Valley Regional Career Academy (Davidson). Their proposal, titled “The Grotesque Grocer,” planned for a system to collect healthy fruits and vegetables unfit for sale in normal distribution channels because of the items’ appearance and sell them at discounted prices or donate them to those in need.

“Before this, I never knew what a food desert was, and now I know that there are 23.5 million people who live in areas that are dominated by fast food chains,” Garcia said. “This project helped me to learn more about deformed foods—300 million tons of quality produce—that are wasted annually and could be consumed in areas where these food deserts are located.”

The Innovation Challenge, developed by NC New Schools, HQ Raleigh and Cisco Systems, invited students in the NC New Schools network to propose creative, practical solutions to real problems related to food supply or healthy choices. Teams of four to six students used practical skills including research, teamwork and communication to develop their ideas for increasing healthy food availability or encouraging healthy behaviors within their community. Teachers and industry professionals advised the teams during the planning process. Christopher Gergen of HQ Raleigh and NC New Schools staff brainstormed with industry partners, entrepreneurs, students and teachers to craft the challenge theme and format.

“Through this project, I learned how to work with people better,” Price said. “This project’s scope was large, so we had to work collaboratively to put all of the different pieces together. It could not have been done by one person. I also learned a lot about the importance of distributing healthy food to everyone. Before, I thought that most people had access to food, but that’s not really true. This experience has made me more aware of the world around me.”

Nineteen teams from 11 schools submitted proposals and videos, which were judged by industry and higher education professionals based on clear needs analysis, innovative and realistic solution, level of positive impact, and potential for sustainability. Other proposed ideas included an app for managing diabetes, a community garden and a video game about healthy choices for students.

Cisco Systems sponsored the cash awards for the first- and second-place teams to put their proposals into practice. The top eight proposals presented at Scaling STEM were judged by: