{"id":8582,"date":"2020-01-13T17:33:25","date_gmt":"2020-01-13T22:33:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/2020\/01\/17\/aconabolics-earns-trent-stubbs-first-place-innovation-hour\/"},"modified":"2022-11-06T19:21:03","modified_gmt":"2022-11-07T00:21:03","slug":"aconabolics-earns-trent-stubbs-first-place-innovation-hour","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/aconabolics-earns-trent-stubbs-first-place-innovation-hour\/","title":{"rendered":"Aconabolics earns Trent Stubbs ’20 first place at second Innovation Hour"},"content":{"rendered":"

The second Innovation Hour competition wasn\u2019t rigged, exactly, but to have a chance to beat Trent Stubbs \u201920 you also had to have an idea that was literally one of the most innovative in Furman University history<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s just say there was no shame in finishing second.<\/p>\n

Following a series of student presentations, Stubbs was awarded first place and a grant of $2,000 for Aconabolics LLC<\/a>, a company he co-founded and co-owns with Furman Professor of Chemistry Greg Springsteen. Aconabolics produces molecules critical to an emerging technology able to rapidly diagnose cancer and bacterial infections using a process the two discovered in the lab together and for which they expect to soon be granted two patents.<\/p>\n

Innovation Hour gives Furman students an opportunity to pitch ideas to senior adults taking the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute<\/a> (OLLI) class of the same name. Class facilitator David Johnson said the Aconabolics presentation was one of the first the class saw, but its members never forgot it when they voted on the top entry several weeks later.<\/p>\n

\u201c(Trent is) a very impressive young man, so everybody was kind of wowed,\u201d Johnson said. \u201cHe was able to answer every question.\u201d<\/p>\n

That wasn\u2019t as easy as it may have looked, however, for the 2019 Furman Fellow<\/a> and Bell Tower Scholarship<\/a> recipient.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat was one of the parts I enjoyed the most. Every time in the past when I\u2019ve given this presentation, it\u2019s been to a group of scientists, and they are always heavily interested in the science,\u201d Stubbs, a chemistry major,<\/a>\u00a0said. \u201cWhen we\u2019re talking to a different type of crowd it\u2019s tough to adjust the pitch, and talking to this OLLI crowd was unique because everyone in that room had their own area of expertise that needed to be addressed, which I found challenging.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Leanne

Leanne Joyce ’22 was awarded second place at Innovation Hour for “Positive Impact for Kids.”<\/p><\/div>\n

Second place and $1,000 went to Leanne Joyce \u201922 for “Positive Impact for Kids,” while third place and $500 was awarded to Queen Trapp \u201922 for \u201cMother Nature\u2019s Gift.\u201d<\/p>\n

Joyce, a recipient of the Townes Scholarship, founded the nonprofit Positive Impact for Kids<\/a> in 2011, when she was only in the sixth grade. Positive Impact for Kids works to improve the hospital experience for children and teenagers and was inspired by Joyce\u2019s own time in the hospital resulting from a heart condition called aortic valve stenosis<\/a> she\u2019s had since birth.<\/p>\n

\u201cI currently partner with 118 hospitals in the country, two in every state. I\u2019ve raised over $150,000 so far, and my pitch was sort of about creating a larger impact at the hospitals that I partner with,\u201d Joyce, a German major<\/a> on a pre-med track, said. \u201cI want to create teenage empowerment areas that would allow for teens to gather there and have a space where they can connect with other people and feel a sense of normalcy.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Queen

Queen Trapp ’22 was awarded third place at Innovation Hour for “Mother Nature’s Gift.”<\/p><\/div>\n

Trapp, also a Bell Tower Scholarship recipient, started a personal project in high school giving middle school girls a week\u2019s supply of menstrual supplies and informational materials in a handmade bag after observing peers who grew up in environments where menstruation wasn\u2019t openly discussed. She hopes to use the money to expand the scope and perhaps launch a nonprofit.<\/p>\n

\u201cI had a friend \u2026 who had to sneak around to get pads, which I thought was weird,\u201d she said. \u201cI think it\u2019s partly living the South and the culture around womanhood in general. Periods shouldn\u2019t be shamed. Especially in middle school, everything is happening. That\u2019s the last thing you want to be worried about.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Furman Creative Collaborative is a student group, and Amelia Davidson \u201920 served as its OLLI coordinator responsible for Innovation Hour. One significant difference from the 2018 edition was the absence of faculty and staff from the competition.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe made a conscious effort to have only students present this year \u2026 It made it a little harder to fill all the slots,\u201d Johnson said. \u201cAmelia did a great job trying to recruit speakers.\u201d<\/p>\n

Another change was funding for the prize winners. OLLI provided $3,000 in grant money, with the Furman Creative Collaborative pitching in another $500, in hopes of assuring Innovation Hour<\/a> remains an annual part of the OLLI curriculum.<\/p>\n

\u201cOLLI gives money back to Furman every year, so instead of just a big check, a little portion of that we wanted directed for this program,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The second Innovation Hour competition wasn\u2019t rigged, exactly, but to have a chance to beat Trent Stubbs \u201920 you also had to have an idea that was literally one of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":265,"featured_media":18192,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[15,53,16,13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8582","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-academic-department-page","category-chemistry","category-modern-languages-and-literature","category-top-four-news-4th-story"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8582","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/265"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8582"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8582\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18192"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8582"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8582"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8582"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}