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.
University of Northern Iowa 2019 alumnus Jacob Smith and quantitative economics major Cole Wetzel have been selected as one of the Top 25 Finalist teams for the Schultz Entrepreneurship Challenge as part of e-Fest 2020, a three-day competition awarding a total of $250,000 in prize money.
UNI alumnus and entrepreneur Russell Karim's newest venture seeks to boost profitability and workers' salaries in apparel companies in his home country of Bangladesh.
