Senior accounting and international business major Joi Strickland’s big idea earned her a big check to support that vision.
The Bourbonnais native took home the $10,000 top prize at the StartUp Showcase with her idea for a digital productivity application designed specifically for students called Studentivity. During the event, held November 11 in the Aaron Leetch Stadium Club, students had seven minutes to pitch their startup ideas to a panel of four judges. The event, which has featured winners including Packback, Open Source Classroom, BizzBaits, and First Hand Museum., is sponsored by the George R. and Martha Means Center for Entrepreneurial Studies.
Taniya Gibbs took home the $6,000 second prize for divinepassionart, and Zach Comacho won the $4,000 third prize for Axyes. Seven additional projects received $500 runner-up awards. The awarded funds go towards support for their start-up business.
“It feels pretty cool,” Strickland said. “I was really nervous coming into this, but I’m proud of myself. I’m appreciative of the judges here for giving me a chance. I’m appreciative of the people who have supported me and told me, ‘Hey, this is something that you can do.’”
Strickland has always been a highly involved student throughout high school and college. She said time management has been a challenge, and she initially started conceptualizing the idea that would become Studentivity while studying abroad in Germany last year. Studentivity is designed to give students control over their studies, extracurriculars, and social lives while providing metrics of their own success.
“One of the things I hope to solve is that feeling of being overwhelmed,” Strickland said. “I wanted to come up with something that allows myself and other students to balance all of those tasks and allocate their time and decide what they want to prioritize.”
Strickland felt she had a promising idea and decided to throw her hat in the ring for the StartUp Showcase. She condensed her thoughts on what Studentivity could be into a three-minute submission to enter the contest. While having the idea for an application is one thing, creating a viable product is a completely different endeavor. Some of the bigger challenges for Strickland involved estimating what it would cost to develop the app and host it on sites like Apple’s App Store.
Now that she has successfully pitched the idea, she plans to use her prize money to start the design and testing process, potentially with students at Illinois State.
“I look forward to seeing what other students feel they need to be organized and seeing how I can optimize that in the form of an app,” she said.
Strickland plans to attend graduate school after she finishes her undergrad journey in May and hopes to eventually become a professor. She has simple advice for students who have lofty ideas of their own that they may want to present at the StartUp Showcase.
“My advice would just be to do it,” she said. “Sometimes we get in our heads about what is intimidating, or what might make us nervous. But take a chance.”
