Last year, NYU students Michelle Dugan and Ashley Seiver had an idea: What if there was an easy way to transport purchases from farmers' markets back to your home?
"We realized that's what the markets needed — a delivery service," Dugan said.
So Dugan and Seiver, now CAS seniors, entered their idea in last year's NYU Reynolds/Youth Venture "Be a Changemaker Challenge," which awards grants to NYU students looking to launch their own innovative and sustainable entrepreneurial projects. They went on to win the $10,000 grand prize award for their idea.
Now, the 2010-11 competition is under way, and for the first time since the program's launch five years ago, it will offer the grand prize-winning team up to $20,000 to help launch their project.
Even for participants who don't walk away with the grand prize, the program offers $1,000 seed grants for other innovative ideas. To qualify for a grant, students must propose unique projects.
"The projects have to be new initiatives, nothing from an organization or business that already exists," Reynolds program coordinator Nate Taylor said.
Gallatin junior Olha Popova Kazan plans to propose a fashion magazine for women interested in business.
"Right now the fashion magazines available are more about high fashion and to sell sex," Kazan said.
She's had the idea for years, but not the resources to launch the magazine.
"The grand prize provided by the Reynolds Program will absolutely be a good start to launch a business or organization," she said. "If you are able to bring together people with various skill sets and advisers, while using resources you already have, the money will be able to add to an existing vision."
According to Taylor, for a contestant to be competitive in the challenge, the project must be able to maintain itself for years to come.
In an interview earlier this year, NYU vice president for alumni affairs and development Debra LaMorte told WSN that Catherine Reynolds, who is unconnected to the university, chose to fund the scholarship program out of a desire to reward students who prove that having heart and having business savvy aren't mutually exclusive things.
"She wanted to create a program where the two elements could come together," LaMorte said.
More information on the Reynolds Program is available at nyu.edu/reynolds
