{"id":158306,"date":"2022-04-30T17:28:00","date_gmt":"2022-05-01T03:28:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/?p=158306"},"modified":"2024-03-14T23:18:47","modified_gmt":"2024-03-15T09:18:47","slug":"uh-venture-competition-goall","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/2022\/04\/30\/uh-venture-competition-goall\/","title":{"rendered":"Online language learning startup wins 2022 UH<\/abbr> Venture Competition"},"content":{"rendered":"Reading time: <\/span> 3<\/span> minutes<\/span><\/span>
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Goall won the 2022 UH<\/abbr> Venture Competition. (Photo credit: Paula Ota)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

A startup company helping people learn different languages is the winner of the 2022 University of Â鶹´«Ã½<\/span> Venture Competition<\/a> (UHVC<\/abbr>). GOALL<\/abbr> (Great Online Activities for Language Learning), led by University of Â鶹´«Ã½<\/span> at M\u0101noa PhD<\/abbr> students, won a prize package of more than $34,000.<\/p>\n

GOALL<\/abbr> provides a web and mobile app to help adult language learners achieve their goals through customizable and research-grounded task-based activities. Its prize package includes $10,000 from title sponsors Hawaiian Electric Industries (HEI<\/abbr>) and Hawaiian Electric, and more than $24,000 in in-kind prizes. Team members are Ann Choe<\/strong>, Kristen Urada<\/strong>, Yang Liu<\/strong> and Susanne DeVore<\/strong>, who are all PhD<\/abbr> students in UH<\/abbr> M\u0101noa\u2019s Department of Second Language Studies<\/a> in the College of Arts, Languages & Letters<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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The final event of the UH<\/abbr> Venture Competition was held at the American Savings Bank campus in downtown Honolulu. (Photo credit: Paula Ota)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

“We are very honored to receive first place,” said Choe, GOALL<\/abbr>\u2019s team leader. “The whole experience was a fantastic opportunity to develop our entrepreneurial knowledge and skills. We\u2019re grateful for PACE<\/abbr>, our coach Jeff Hui, and those who supported GOALL<\/abbr> all along. We can\u2019t wait to advance GOALL<\/abbr> to its next step.”<\/p>\n

GOALL<\/abbr> was one of three finalists that presented to a group of judges at UHVC<\/abbr>\u2019s final event held in-person on April 29 at American Savings Bank. View the event on the Pacific Asian Center for Entrepreneurship\u2019s (PACE<\/abbr>) YouTube channel<\/a>.<\/p>\n

UHVC<\/abbr> is hosted annually by PACE<\/abbr><\/a> in UH<\/abbr> M\u0101noa\u2019s Shidler College of Business<\/a> to support budding entrepreneurs by providing hands-on education, mentorship and resources to students from the 10-campus UH<\/abbr> System who wish to start a new business.<\/p>\n

Finalists<\/h2>\n
\"people
The final event of the UH<\/abbr> Venture Competition was held at the American Savings Bank campus in downtown Honolulu. (Photo credit: Paula Ota)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Resesio—a company that offers an automated optimization model for the construction design process, resulting in significant material and cost savings\u2014won the second place prize, which includes $5,000 from HEI<\/abbr> and Hawaiian Electric and $14,400 in in-kind prizes. Team members are UH<\/abbr> M\u0101noa Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering<\/a> PhD<\/abbr> students Mohamed Sherif<\/strong>, Amr Ghanem<\/strong> and Mostafa Abdelhafeez<\/strong>. Sherif and Ghanem won the 2021 UH<\/abbr> Breakthrough Innovation Challenge<\/a> and a $5,000 prize for a company called Model-C, which is focused on infrastructure simulation and optimization technology.<\/p>\n

The third place winner was the Ōfaga Leo Preschool System, which provides immersion language education in Â鶹´«Ã½<\/span> and the continental U.S. in areas where there is a high demand for childcare and preschool services in Samoan language. The third place prize totaled more than $10,000, including a $2,500 cash prize sponsored by HiBEAM<\/abbr> in honor of pioneer Billy Richardson. Team members are John Patu, Jr<\/abbr>.<\/strong>, a PhD<\/abbr> student in Hawaiian and Indigenous Language and Culture Revitalization<\/a> at UH<\/abbr> Hilo, and Carmelita T. Patu<\/strong>, a creative media student at Windward Community College<\/a>.<\/p>\n

These three teams reached the finals after beating out 25 other teams in two earlier rounds of competition.<\/p>\n

“We are proud of all of the courageous teams that embarked on their entrepreneurial journey through the competition. We were pleased to see a diverse group of participants from six UH<\/abbr> System campuses with startup ideas, ranging from geothermal energy to educational platforms to consumer products,” said PACE<\/abbr> Executive Director Sandra Fujiyama<\/strong>. “This competition is not possible without the generous support of our sponsors, partners, and volunteers, for whom I am very grateful.”<\/p>\n

“At HEI<\/abbr>, we recognize the vital role entrepreneurs play in creating and maintaining a vibrant economy for our island state,” said Scott Seu, HEI<\/abbr> president and CEO<\/abbr>. “We applaud the innovative ideas and hard work of all the participants, and recognize the many mentors and professors who guided them along the way.”<\/p>\n

In addition to cash prizes, each winning team will take home a carefully curated prize package of support services. Prize sponsors include Blue Logic Labs, HiBEAM<\/abbr>, Hub Coworking Â鶹´«Ã½<\/span>, New Venture Pro, Pineapple Tweed and Vantage Counsel.<\/p>\n

Outstanding student entrepreneur<\/h2>\n

Fujiyama also presented Madonna Castro Perez<\/strong> with PACE<\/abbr>\u2019s outstanding student entrepreneur of the year award for her exceptional contributions to entrepreneurial activities at the university and in the community. The law student was a member of the winning team in the 2020 competition. She has served as the vice chair of the Calvin Shindo Student Venture Fund since February 2021, leading a committee of 12 students to manage the venture finance process. She served as a civil rights advocate at the Legal Aid Society of Â鶹´«Ã½<\/span> and an intern at Blue Startups.<\/p>\n

This program is an example of UH<\/abbr> M\u0101noa\u2019s goal of Enhancing Student Success<\/a> (PDF<\/abbr><\/span>) and Excellence in Research: Advancing the Research and Creative Work Enterprise<\/a> (PDF<\/abbr><\/span>), two of four goals identified in the 2015–25 Â鶹´«Ã½<\/a> (PDF<\/abbr><\/span>), updated in December 2020.<\/p>\n

—By Marc Arakaki<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The first place prize includes $10,000 from HEI<\/abbr> and Hawaiian Electric, and more than $24,000 in in-kind prizes.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":16,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[1477,1471,179,549,182,734,1057,214,1466,425,1170,146,660,14,9,66,1626],"class_list":["post-158306","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-people","tag-civil-environmental-construction-engineering","tag-college-of-arts-languages-and-letters","tag-college-of-engineering","tag-creative-media","tag-engineering","tag-entrepreneurship","tag-hawaiian-language","tag-language","tag-manoa-enhancing-student-success","tag-pacific-asian-center-for-entrepreneurship","tag-second-language-studies","tag-shidler-college-of-business","tag-student-recognition","tag-uh-hilo","tag-uh-manoa","tag-windward-community-college","tag-women-of-uh","entry","has-media"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/158306","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=158306"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/158306\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":158313,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/158306\/revisions\/158313"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=158306"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=158306"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=158306"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}