On Thursday, April 22 and Friday, April 23, 2021, Maddie Palmersheim (senior) and Grace Hartnett (senior) represented UNI at e-Fest hosted by the Schulze School of Entrepreneurship. e-Fest was an online competition that consisted of a pitch competition and the Schulze Innovation Challenge that awarded participants with over $215k in prize money.
A group of aspiring entrepreneurs from University of Northern Iowa will be among 25 teams vying for $215,000 this week at a national competition looking for the next big idea.
Virgo is competing this week at e-Fest, a virtual event being hosted by the University of St. Thomas in Minnesota.
On Thursday, April 15 the College of Business Administration held their annual Leadership Awards Ceremony. At the event, the UNI JPEC awarded two graduating student entrepreneurs who have excelled at our center.
A new start-up by a University of Northern Iowa senior is rethinking the gig economy, a fast-growing sector that now involves about one-third of U.S. workers.
Rosie Daniels' dream of owning a business started in her basement in the summer of 2019.
Now, less than two years later, the natural hair- and skin-care products from her business, LuLit’s Hair Essence, are on the shelves of Hy-Vee, and she credits a community business accelerator that had assistance from the University of Northern Iowa with helping her get there.
A.J. Reding, Nathan Anderson, Xavier Washington, and Imani Reed met when participating in the SHIPHT Entrepreneurial Discovery Series at the University of Northern Iowa. Now known as the executive team for YOU & I Care, their mission was to create a project that would help the community. Wanting to make mental health help more accessible and cheaper, they came up with a unique idea that asks people to simply listen.
On January 8, The United States Association for Small Business and Entrepreneurship (USASBE) announced the 2021 winners of the Entrepreneurship Experiential Exercises (3E) Competition during the organization’s USASBE 2021: Be Boldly Unscripted annual conference.
UNI students competed for $2000 in awards at the Annual UNI Entrepreneurs Elevator Pitch Competition. The 2020 competition took place on Tuesday, November 3rd at the Business & Community Services Building. There were two different competitions that the entrepreneurs could compete in: Ideation and Revenue. Ideation are students with business ideas that are in the early stages of development and have yet to earn revenue. Students in the Revenue competition have existing businesses and are making money. Each student had just 90 seconds to explain their business ideas to a panel of judges.
Robert Sales is no stranger to the limelight at the University of Northern Iowa. The Communication major was a fixture at UNI Panther football and basketball games selling doughnuts from his year-round concession stand, Rob’s Mini Donuts and in the halls mentoring other entrepreneurial students in the UNI John Pappajohn Entrepreneurial Center (UNI JPEC).
Robert Sales arrived at UNI knowing he wanted to be an entrepreneur.
The Pella native’s business instincts had been apparent since he was a first-grader who won a contract mowing vacant lots in his neighborhood. At UNI, Sales focused on the food industry, launching a food truck business and then, with help from professors and mentors, narrowed his focus to selling mini doughnuts.
