Eight Western students who make up team YERGO! were awarded the Robert G. Siskind Entrepreneurial Award for their idea for a premium caffeine candy at the recent 2022 Business 2257 Feasibility Study Competition hosted by Ivey’s Business Foundations department.
The winning team includes Angela Chen, Henry Chen, Cathy Hu, Nicholas Lam, Annie Tan, Sandy Wu, Hannah Yuan, and Yuki Zhao. The students will receive a plaque and a monetary award for their feasibility study on an all-natural, sustainable, caffeine alternative that they hope to launch in September 2022.
The Business 2257 Feasibility Study Competition is a portion of the Business 2257 course’s curriculum and is an extraordinary opportunity for students to forge business development skills through applying academic knowledge to real-life experience.
Meet the finalist teams
Each year, three finalist teams compete before a panel of judges. At this year’s event, approximately 300 people watched the three finalist teams, chosen from 210 feasibility studies, present virtually in a Zoom webinar. Robert Siskind himself and Cathy Siskind-Kelly, co-founder of Black Fly Beverages, attended the event and announced the winning team.
In addition to YERGO!, the two other finalist teams included:
- Copper Solutions – Isabelle Annis-Bandola, Juliana Edgett, Jonathan Gans, Laura Maclean, Bradley Slegers, Jared Weiner, Amy Wynne; and,
- ReFilament – Ian Brander, David Macy, Elena O’Connor, Glen Raudanskis, Jessie Schnoor, Samantha Stoddart, Vanessa Wensink.
Thank you to the judges
The judging panel included:
- Nadine de Gannes, HBA ’09, HBA Program Associate Faculty Director & Assistant Professor, Ivey Business School;
- Julia Hou, HBA ’18, Founder, Mr. & Mrs. Bao Restaurants Inc.; and,
- Rob Hunter, HBA ’07, CEO & Co-Founder, Lexria.
