History Makers Win a Harvard Startup Prize
MagicMakeHers.com
The Harvard Gazette reports that last month a team, of two May 2016 Harvard Law School (HLS) graduates, and one who will graduate from HLS next year, won the grand prize in the Harvard Innovation Lab’s ( i-lab) Deans’ Cultural Entrepreneurship Challenge.
The website, MagicMakeHers.com (Magic), is a “subscription career awareness and positive self-image box developed by women of color for girls of color.” Follow Magic on Facebook. Instagram, and Twitter.
The Harvard Deans’ Challenge is a startup competition to find original solutions to pressing issues facing society. The i-Lab provides resources “for any student at Harvard interested in entrepreneurship and innovation.” I-Lab assists students any stage of their venture’s development and is multidisciplinary.
The Magic Team and Its Mentor
Two of the four co-founders Shay Johnson and Jenaé Moxie received their HLS degrees in May 2016. Ke’Andra Levingston will get hers in 2017. The fourth team member, Sheryl Felecia Means, is a PhD candidate at the University of Kentucky, working on her dissertation and research in Bahia, Brazil.
Fun fact: Johnson, Levingston and Means are also Spelman College graduates.
Angela Benton, the indomitable founder and CEO of NewMe Startup Accelerator, met with the team once a week for about four weeks. She told STEMRules, “Harvard reached out to me and asked me to mentor them. They didn’t have any mentors that had experience coaching for this type of product so I was eager to help where I could.”
A Flurry of Historic firsts
The Magic team made history. It was the first HLS team to win this particular challenge. The first black female team in the competition, the first all female team, the first all-black team, and won the largest grand prize in the competition’s history, $45,000. The judges also levied a unanimous decision.
Teams from 12 Harvard schools submitted more than 90 venture proposals, later reduced to 20. The judging committee comprised Harvard faculty, industry experts, entrepreneurs, and investors who awarded the grand prize and runner-up awards.
Each finalist venture participated in the Harvard Innovation Labs Venture Incubation Program, was given access to experienced business mentors, and received $5,000 to develop their idea.
The team told STEMRules, “For us, winning this challenge represents so much more than a financial opportunity for us, it is our hope that we inspire other budding entrepreneurs – especially individuals from groups that are underrepresented in this field, like ourselves.”
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