The San Diego Chapter of the Entrepreneurs Organization recently held its annual Global Student Entrepreneur Awards (GSEA) event – a competition for students who own or operate a business while attending college or university.
This year, four finalists competed for a first-place prize of $25,000 in cash and in-kind services from EO San Diego members, such as a website developed by BitCot, legal counsel from Witham Mahoney & Abbot, marketing strategy from Rick Valentine, messaging from CrowePR and more.
“Our competition gives these student entrepreneurs mentorship and our EO network to help them get through the start-up phase of their business,” said GSEA board chair Jeff Everage. “These students inspire and impress us with their hard work as they focus on studies and building a business.”
Taking the top prize was University of St. Augustine for Health Sciences student Mariah Mendez who won for her company LEAH Care, Inc., an application that helps family members manage their senior’s medication.
Second place went to University of San Diego student Steffek Rainey for his company Evera Bottle, an insulated water bottle with five reusable utensils stored inside.
The other finalists were San Diego State University student Siddhant Pithadiya for personalized perfume company Scence Fragrances and EF Academy and online Stanford University student Alina Voronina for her nanosatellite and microfluidics company SpaceBox.
Mendez will go on to represent San Diego in the GSEA national competition for a chance to win $50,000 in prizes.
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A program piloted by a Rady Children’s Hospital pediatric oncologist initially funded by a $125,000 medical grant from Curebound was given a boost last month in the form of a $4 million research project grant from the National Institutes of Health and the National Cancer Institute.
Dr. Paula Aristizabal, MD, who is also associate professor of pediatrics in Pediatric Hematology/Oncology at the University of California San Diego and Moores Cancer Center, started the COMPRENDO program in 2018 to improve diverse participation in pediatric cancer clinical trials. With the new funding, Aristizabal will expand her research in San Diego and add three new sites: Boston, San Francisco, and Alabama. The goal of the research is to make access to clinical trials more equitable improve clinical outcomes and survival among all ethnicities.
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La Jolla Institute for Immunology President and CEO Erica Ollman Saphire was awarded the 2023 Pantheon Award for Academia, Non-Profit, & Research from California Life Sciences, the state’s life sciences trade association at a ceremony held Nov. 1 in San Francisco.
Saphire led LJI’s research into antibody therapeutics against COVID-19 and other viral threats such as Ebola and Lassa virus. Beyond her work at LJI, Sapphire also established partnerships with laboratories across the globe, including the Coronavirus Immunotherapeutic Consortium, an international effort to find antibodies to fight SARS-CoV-2.
