Student Projects

• Claire Childs, Management
• Jason Rafferty, Art

In order to increase accessibility of classical arts and business training, Jason and Claire propose a teaching studio that will offer exceptional technical training in painting, ballet and music, interdisciplinary collaboration, and a unique arts entrepreneurship mentoring program.

Apollo tied for third place in the 2016 UNC Asheville Social Entrepreneurship Competition.

• Erika Floyd, Anthropology
• Ben Wall, Business

Household waste disposal and energy consumption are linked to greenhouse gas emissions that contribute to climate change. Ben and Erika propose to reduce this with an in-home biogas generator that collects household organic waste and converts it into energy.

Biomod won second place in the 2016 UNC Asheville Social Entrepreneurship Competition.

• Lea Gilbert, Arts & Markets
• Nathan Koerschner, Mathematics

Bridge the Gap won first place in the 2018 UNC Asheville Social Enterprise Competition. Their goal is to help senior citizens, especially homebound individuals, connect with youth.

Nathan has continued to work on the issues that face seniors and is now focusing on addressing social isolation through a community learning solution. He is doing this through undergraduate research and independent work on the company he has founded, called Befriend Learning.

• Jacob Persons, Business
• John Browning, Accounting
• Rosemary Fischer, Drama

Community SafeLink proposes an app that can record interactions between the police and the public, notify emergency contacts, and call a witness in order to increase citizen safety and ease damaging police publicity. Jacob and Rosemary placed third in the 2015 UNC Social Entreprneurship Competition. John advised this team as the financial mentor in the “Ideas to Action” course.

Rosemary graduated from UNC Asheville in December 2015.  Jacob and John participated in the UNC System statewide Social Entreprenuership Competition in February 2016 (pictured here) and graduated from UNC Asheville in May 2016.

• Jacqui Henderson-Scott, Business
• Glaucia Vieira, Health Sciences

In order to encourage children to develop a connection to the food that they eat, Jacqui and Glaucia propose a small home aquaponics system with a fun and educational app for children. This can help children understand the source of their food and how it will impact their future.

Growing Minds tied for third place in the 2016 Social Entrepreneurship Competition.

Jacqui took another idea, Green Peak, to the 2017 Social Entrepreneurship Competition and won second place.

Both Jacqui and Glaucia have graduated from UNC Asheville and Jacqui is enrolled in the MBA Social Entrepreneurship graduate program at Lenoir-Rhyne University. She tells us, “If I had not taken the Ideas to Action class, I may have never discovered my path to social enterprise!”

• Ashleigh (Rainbow) Hillen, Environmental Science
• Lance Mills, Environmental Science

To help save lives lost to preventable deaths, Ashleigh and Lance propose to provide onsite CPR training in places where it is not usually available.

Heart Racers won second place winner of the 2014 UNC Asheville Social Entrepreneurship competition and presented their business plan and pitch at the 2015 UNC system statewide Social Entrepreneurship Competition.

Ashleigh also served as a student mentor in the UNC Asheville “Ideas to Action” course.

Lance and Ashleigh graduated from UNC Asheville in May 2016.

• Morgan Fuller, Drama
• Andy Morrison, Environmental Science

ManagAIR is an app that tackles the problem of inefficiency in heating and air conditioning systems through the collection of crowd-sourced user data.

If there would have been a “resilience award” for the 2017 Ideas to Action class, it would have gone to this team. Morgan and Andy ran into one big roadblock after another with their idea but they never gave up– they used every bit of “this won’t work” feedback to keep improving their product. And then they rocked their presentation at the 2017 Social Entrepreneurship Competition. Morgan also presented at the ClimateCon Forum in Asheville in March 2018.

Hear more about what they learned in their BPR Radio interview.

• Madison Eddings, Biology
• Ben Eisdorfer, Business

Madison and Ben are working on wearable technology to fight campus sexual assault.

Pro(TECH)t won first place in the 2014 UNC Asheville Social Entrepreneurship Competition, and went on to win first place in the 2015 UNC system statewide Social Entrepreneurship Competition, first place in the 2016 InnovateHer Challenge, and third place in the Global Student Entrepreneur Awards. Madison and Ben were also invited and attended the 2016 China Young Entrepreneurs Summit.

Madison and Ben offer advice to other budding entrepreneurs and serve as student mentors for the UNC Asheville “Ideas to Action” course.

• Katherine Franks, Economics
• Luther Wardle, Computer Science
• Tia Foster, Sociology

Tia Foster (Sociology) & Katherine Franks – ReSight winners of the 2017 UNC Asheville Social Entrepreneurship Competition

ReSight is a photo to speech cellphone application that provides multisensory resources for students with learning and reading disabilities.

The ReSight concept was developed by Katherine Franks and Tia Foster (pictured below) — their team placed first in the 2017 UNC Asheville Social Entrepreneurship Competition. Following the competition, Katherine continued to work on ReSight as an undergraduate research project with Luther Wardle who is developing the program code.

• Zac Lopez-Ibanez, Management
• Sinead Abbott McCloud, Political Science

In order to address the immediate needs of homelessness, SOCA’s membership model channels funding to non-profit organizations by selling short-term rental owners a certification of sustainable tourism.

Following their participation in the 2017 Social Entrepreneurship Competition, Zac took the work begun in the Ideas to Action course to integrate the SOCA concept into an existing platform. He worked with Homeward Bound and real estate agents in a program titled REACH (Real Estate Agents Combating Homelessness) to channel portions of the agent’s proceeds to address homelessness. The REACH program is now extending beyond real estate agents to groups that manage and operate short-term rental properties.

• Camden Aguilar, Interdisciplinary Studies
• Shayla Khalife, Business

In order to combat sexual and other assault, Safety Creations has designed a personal alert device in the form of jewelry with Bluetooth technology.

After this team won third place in the 2017 Social Entrepreneurship Competition, Shayla graduated from UNC Asheville and continues to pursue the development of the Safety Creations device. She says, “I am thankful for the opportunities that Ideas to Action has given my company and how much it has contributed to our future success and growth. Hopefully ‘Safety Creations’ will provide a wearable strategic alert system that is discreet, unique, and practical enough for people to incorporate in their everyday life.”

• Logan Lueck, Business
• Michael Luney, Computer Science

Logan and Michael are committed to supporting the education of children with learning disabilities. Their sound-dampening product reduces noise-based distractions in educational environments.

Sound-Fade won first place in the 2015 UNC Asheville Social Entrepreneurship Competition and advanced to present their business plan and pitch at the 2016 UNC system statewide Social Entrepreneurship Competition.

Their work has continued in 2017 as they are now developing a prototype of their product.

Logan and Michael also serve as student mentors in the UNC Asheville “Ideas to Action” course.

• Robert Britton, Business
• Gemma Gentlesk, Arts & Markets

To increase the efficiency and convenience of clean, renewable energy, Sun Roof proposed an idea for panels that attach to the top of vehicles in order to collect and store energy for home consumption.

The team won second place in the 2018 UNC Asheville Social Enterprise Competition.

• Anna Dasilva, Mathematics
• Kelli Early, Business

In order to address the 17 billion used tampons and pads that accumulate in landfills every year, Anna and Kelli propose to sell bins and pick-up service to decompose these products into organic compost.

TerraFemme placed first in the 2016 UNC Asheville Social Entrepreneurship Competition. Anna has continued the research focusing on the composting of unconventional materials. She won the “best business pitch” at the ClimateCon Forum student pitch competition in March 2018 and has also received a prestigious travel grant by UNC Asheville to attend the National Conference on Undergraduate Research in Oklahoma this April 2018.

In Anna’s words, the Ideas to Action course followed by my undergraduate reseach project has inspired me to combine my love for problem solving with my passion for environmental activism.

• Quinn McKearney, Arts & Markets
• Zach Boone, Computer Science

Quinn is a drummer who is interested in helping local DIY (do it yourself) artists with their marketing. He is collecting data such as scheduling and marketing techniques used by local venues and artists and comparing this with the success and attendance at their events.

Zach is a computer science student who is working on formatting the data and writing the software to do the data analysis.

Their goal is to connect artists with their target audience by providing recommendations to artists and collectives such as talent management firms and record labels, breaking down exactly what kind of promotion should be used and when.