Two hundred business students from high schools across Nassau County, including two teams from Oyster Bay High School, competed for scholarships and cash awards—more than $33,000 in all—from various sponsors at Nassau County’s annual Comptroller’s Entrepreneurial Challenge.
Last month at the Theodore Roosevelt Executive and Legislative Building, student teams had 10 minutes to convince a panel of expert judges that their plan for a business in the Plaza of the new Nassau Veterans Memorial Coliseum is feasible and would be successful.
“It felt great to showcase our idea. Our proposed business serves an alternative to unhealthy foods that people often crave,” said Hannah Guarini, from team Cravings, “This was a good opportunity to learn about the business field.”
“Our business proposal near the coliseum is called Aqua-lean. It is a business that has a newly renovated way of working out. It’s going to be all pools and workouts that involve the joints,” said David Rivera, from team Aqua-lean.
This year students have the opportunity to win $10,000 scholarships to Hofstra University or Adelphi University; Healthplex and Deloitte are supplying cash prizes of $5,000 each, with EmblemHealth putting up $2,500 and Jzanus Home Care offering a $750 prize.
“My office has created a competition where the leaders of tomorrow will be challenged today to come up with business ideas that they feel will thrive in Nassau County,” Comptroller George Maragos said. “The development around the Coliseum will be one of the largest projects in the county and the challenge will provide students with an exciting opportunity to come up with innovative and youthful business ideas.”
