Congratulations to the 2011 Ecademy Award Recipients!
The Annual Ecademy Awards were started in 2007 as a way to honor and celebrate those young entrepreneurs in our community who, upon graduating from Columbia Business School, launched a successful enterprise.
The award ceremony, emceed by Professor Clifford Schorer, entrepreneur in residence, is intended to be lighthearted and entertaining. The ceremony typically takes place during the School’s open house activities for admitted students. It demonstrates the spirit, creativity and diversity of our entrepreneurial community in a fun way yet sends a clear message to these prospective students: Columbia Business School is an institution that nurtures, hones and celebrates the education, real-world practice and lifestyle of the entrepreneur.
This year's Ecademy Awards will take place on the afternoon of Friday April 8, 2011. Following are brief descriptions on the winning companies:
Agora Partnerships is a community of development and investment professionals, volunteer consultants and entrepreneurs committed to launching and growing successful, socially-responsible businesses in emerging markets. Agora leverages investment in areas where inefficient capital markets and other formidable barriers to entrepreneurship have prevented talent from achieving its full potential. The organization provides emerging market entrepreneurs with the same arsenal of tools available to their counterparts in wealthy countries. Ben Powell '05
ChallengePost is site that helps you take the first step in solving a problem or granting a wish. After all, we all wish for things: A new iPhone app that points me toward deals at my favorite retailer; a cheap, small solar-powered generator; a better way to teach kids math. ChallengePost allows you to create and join challenges to accomplish goals. It also allows organizations to sponsor competitions of the same variety. Once a challenge is created, other people can join the challenge and pledge money or simply appreciation. Those incentives, which are payable only if a challenge is solved, encourage others to solve a problem and earn rewards. Brandon Kessler '07
Peeled Snacks fills a critical void in the snack market: tasty, convenient foods that are naturally nutritious and make people feel good about snacking. The rapidly growing company brings consumers the juiciest, tastiest, organic, gently-dried fruit with no added sugar, preservatives, or other additives. The snacks provide a natural source of fiber and vitamins, and they are gluten, dairy, and cholesterol free. Noha Waibsnaider '02
RightsGenie allows media buyers from around the world to search for all content types, including films, television shows, sports programming, recorded live events, original web content, books, and video games. RightsGenie will then track down the content owner and clear the right. Licensing content just got a lot easier. Josh Brody '10