Welcome, LEARN, WORK & Live judges!
Learn, Work & Live team entries are listed below. Please review each of the entries, and fill out a feedback form for each team.
Judges: Jack McGowan, William Newman, Gia Miller, Satish Kunchakuri, Aishwarya Acharya
NOTE: Students were asked to present a 6 - 8 minute video. Please only watch videos to the 8 minute mark.
All feedback is due 4/17 by 3PM.
Fikia
Learn, Work & Live - 4
NOTE TO JUDGES: Across Africa, the potential for transformation is staggering. With over 9+ million university students and 200+ million in primary and secondary schools, the continent stands on the cusp of a monumental shift. Yet, despite being blessed with abundant natural resources and the world's youngest population, Africa remains mired in poverty. The reasons are complex, encompassing historical, political, security, and economic factors. However, a critical piece of the puzzle lies in education and skills development. How can Africa progress when one country, like India, has more software developers than the entire African continent?
This stark reality ignites a passionate fire within us at Fikia. We refuse to accept the status quo. We believe that education and skills hold the key to unlocking Africa's potential. By empowering African youth with practical skills and connecting them with global opportunities, Fikia is not just shaping careers; it’s shaping the continent's destiny. We envision a future where every African student has the skills and opportunities to thrive, and where Africa takes its rightful place as a global leader in technology, innovation, and prosperity.
We’re more than a platform; we're part of a movement. A movement that believes in the power of education to transform lives and communities. A movement that sees Africa not as a continent of challenges, but as a place of boundless potential. Join us in rewriting Africa's future—one student, one opportunity at a time.
Filmify
Learn, Work & Live - 5
NOTE TO JUDGES: Video production companies, especially small to medium size (SMB), are inundated with complex, non-creative tasks in the growing video production sector. Filmify distinguishes itself by targeting this specific pain point: we streamline production's business and management side, which typically gets entangled in the creative process.
Filmify stands distinct from content-focused platforms like Adobe (video editing or video storage platforms), honing in on streamlining workflow and enhancing stakeholder management for video production. We're dedicated to the business side—think coordination, scheduling, budgeting, and communication—freeing up creative professionals to concentrate on storytelling and content creation without the distraction of administrative tasks.
SMB video production companies operate without the luxury of dedicated teams for clerical tasks (unlike enterprise/larger studios), resulting in significant time spent on non-creative work. This has required a piecemeal approach to software, stitching together various systems like Monday.com or Studiobinder, which can only partially address their needs. Filmify is designed to fill this gap, providing a comprehensive video production solution for the scale and workflow of SMBs. We have adopted an AI-first strategy with our backend, positioning us to outpace competitors retrofitting AI as an afterthought, ensuring seamless integrations and more innovative automation from the ground up. By leveraging AI, Filmify eliminates tedious tasks like scheduling, budget tracking, and communication management (stakeholders), reducing administrative overhead and ultimately increasing profitability.
As AI revolutionizes the creative part of film (video editing), enabling companies to handle more clients (faster creative tools-- produce content faster), there's a growing need for management tools. Filmify seizes this opportunity, ensuring increased client work is matched by superior management efficiency.
HutNumber22
Learn, Work & Live - 9
NOTE TO JUDGES: Our statement is to seamlessly blend the rich traditional spice wisdom held by refugee and immigrant mothers/grandmothers with the cutting-edge capabilities of Nani AI. Through this fusion, we aim to fulfill the national demand for spices in the United States. By harnessing the collective expertise of diverse communities and advanced technology, we strive to deliver exceptional quality, authenticity, and cultural richness to spice enthusiasts across the nation.
rapidreview .io
Learn, Work & Live - 12
NOTE TO JUDGES: Since our regionals submission to NYBPC, we have secured a pilot with a research team at Berkeley and recently confirmed interest in launching a pilot from Standard Industries’ Research Department and Citadel’s Quant Research division. To support heavy use from organizational users, we are working day (and sometimes night) upgrading the engineering of our platform.
SARA’s Books LLC
Learn, Work & Live - 13
NOTE TO JUDGES: Expanding on an idea for nearly nine years, as I have, leads to difficult decisions about what to include and what to exclude in a presentation such as this. Hopefully, you get the impression that I have very big ideas left on the cutting room floor because I do—left out but not forgotten.
I am a solo founder, learning to code, working on full-stack development, academic literature reviews, grant proposals, business planning, product development, and more while completing 106 credit hours (51 graduate-level credits) and holding down a demanding, full-time job. I'd love nothing more than to quit my day job and work on SARA's Books full-time because I cannot set it aside.
It’s not just my dedication, my education, or my professional experience that makes SARA’s Books a solid bet.
- I could write a master’s thesis today on the scientific research into the reading brain,
- I have compiled a corpus for my e-reader of over 100,000 reading assignments, and
- I have an operational recommender that will return the four TEXTS out of 100,000 best fit to a specific reader at a specific moment in their journey to literacy.
I hope you enjoy my pitch as much as I enjoyed making it.