{"id":132573,"date":"2020-12-15T09:31:12","date_gmt":"2020-12-15T19:31:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/?p=132573"},"modified":"2020-12-15T09:31:12","modified_gmt":"2020-12-15T19:31:12","slug":"kauai-cc-epic-2020-proposal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/2020\/12\/15\/kauai-cc-epic-2020-proposal\/","title":{"rendered":"Kaua\u2018i <abbr title=\"Community College\">CC<\/abbr> students put forth <abbr title=\"End Poverty Innovation Challenge\">EPIC<\/abbr> proposal to make a difference"},"content":{"rendered":"<span class=\"span-reading-time rt-reading-time\" style=\"display: block;\"><span class=\"rt-label rt-prefix\">Reading time: <\/span> <span class=\"rt-time\"> 2<\/span> <span class=\"rt-label rt-postfix\">minutes<\/span><\/span><div class=\"responsive-video-wrap-post\"><figure class=\"wp-block-embed wp-block-embed-youtube is-type-video is-provider-youtube epyt-figure\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\"><div class=\"epyt-video-wrapper\"><iframe  id=\"_ytid_23511\"  width=\"620\" height=\"349\"  data-origwidth=\"620\" data-origheight=\"349\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/H3Nj8TAZYLc?enablejsapi=1&origin=https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu&rel=0&autoplay=0&cc_load_policy=0&cc_lang_pref=&iv_load_policy=1&loop=0&fs=1&playsinline=0&autohide=2&theme=dark&color=red&controls=1&disablekb=0&\" class=\"__youtube_prefs__  no-lazyload\" title=\"NutriSweet EPIC 2020 Project\"  allow=\"fullscreen; accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen data-no-lazy=\"1\" data-skipgform_ajax_framebjll=\"\"><\/iframe><\/div><\/div><\/figure><\/div>\n<p>A team of five <a href=\"https:\/\/www.kauai.hawaii.edu\/\"><span aria-label=\"Kauai\">Kaua&#699;i<\/span> Community College<\/a> students made it to the finals of the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.epicsocialventures.com\/#:~:text=Challenge%202020,-The%20End%20Poverty&#038;text=focused%20on%20lifting%20the%20livelihoods%20of%20the%20poor.&#038;text=(BoP).&#038;text=EPIC%20supports%20social%20entrepreneurs%20through,the%20Bottom%20of%20the%20Pyramid.\">End Poverty Innovation Challenge<\/a> (<abbr>EPIC<\/abbr>) 2020 in December. Team NutriSweet went head-to-head against seven teams from Guatemala, Hong Kong, South Africa, Italy, Colombia and Zambia.<\/p>\n<p>&ldquo;<abbr>EPIC<\/abbr> really opened my eyes to how diverse the entrepreneurship world can be. It was an unique experience to hear all the different ideas for different issues around the world. Very inspiring!&rdquo; said <span aria-label=\"Kauai\">Kaua&#699;i<\/span> <abbr title=\"Community College\">CC<\/abbr> student <strong>Taylor Reis<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p>Sponsored by the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.socialventuresfoundation.org\/\">Social Ventures Foundation<\/a>, <abbr>EPIC<\/abbr> aims to create a pipeline to facilitate the identification, recognition, promotion and investment in the most impactful and outstanding sustainable social ventures that can scale and make a difference to millions of the world\u2019s poor.<\/p>\n<h2>Lifting those at the bottom<\/h2>\n<p>Team NutriSweet, composed of students enrolled in Assistant Professor <strong>Dirk Soma<\/strong>\u2019s Entrepreneurship 125 course, included Reis, <strong>Denise Nakamura<\/strong>, <strong>Leighton Pajela<\/strong>, <strong>Crysten-Kaori Kaya<\/strong> and <strong>Jacelyn Perreira<\/strong>. They created, refined and submitted their written proposal and produced a 3-minute video hoping to impress the first round of judges and make it to the top 10.<\/p>\n<p>&ldquo;I am always looking at ways to incorporate project-based activities into my classes and, given the situation that our world is in, <abbr>EPIC<\/abbr> was a great opportunity to focus our students\u2019 entrepreneurial attention on ways to lift those at the bottom of the pyramid,&rdquo; Soma said.<\/p>\n<p>This year, more than 75 student teams from universities and colleges from around the world submitted social entrepreneurship proposals. The <span aria-label=\"Kauai\">Kaua&#699;i<\/span> <abbr>CC<\/abbr> team was the only one chosen from the <abbr title=\"United States\">U.S.<\/abbr> to reach the finals.<\/p>\n<h2>A chewable solution<\/h2>\n<p>In the virtual finals, Team Nutrisweet shared how their concept of collecting and processing local fresh fruits and vegetables into tasty gummies would provide four main benefits:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Reduce food waste by creating value-added products for items that could not be sold to markets.<\/li>\n<li>Provide a source of inexpensive nutrients to impoverished communities, especially pregnant women and children.<\/li>\n<li>Support farmers and provide jobs within the <span aria-label=\"Kauai\">Kaua&#699;i<\/span> community.<\/li>\n<li>Develop a model for micro-enterprise and micro-franchising with global scalability.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Although the team didn\u2019t take home an award this year, the experience has made an impact.<\/p>\n<p>&ldquo;I\u2019ve gained a lot of knowledge of what\u2019s really going on in the world,&rdquo; Perreira said. &ldquo;It\u2019s &lsquo;easy&rsquo; to just look past poverty and hunger when it\u2019s not happening directly to you. With doing this challenge, I\u2019ve become more invested in my community and hopefully can make a positive impact.&rdquo;<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_132574\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-132574\" style=\"width: 676px\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/kauai-epic-2020.jpg\" alt=\"zoom classroom\" width=\"676\" height=\"381\" class=\"size-full wp-image-132574\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/kauai-epic-2020.jpg 676w, https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/kauai-epic-2020-300x169.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/kauai-epic-2020-130x73.jpg 130w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 676px) 100vw, 676px\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-132574\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Students at the <abbr>EPIC<\/abbr> finals<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p><span aria-label=\"Kauai\">Kaua&#699;i<\/span> <abbr>CC<\/abbr> one of eight international teams in social entrepreneurship finals.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":16,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[25],"tags":[734,64,660,71],"class_list":["post-132573","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-academic-news","tag-entrepreneurship","tag-kauai-community-college","tag-student-recognition","tag-uh-community-colleges","entry","has-media"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/132573","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/16"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=132573"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/132573\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":132576,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/132573\/revisions\/132576"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=132573"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=132573"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=132573"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}