Eight weeks ago, Akshara Abbadi didn’t have a business idea, but last Wednesday, the St. Petersburg student walked away with a $10,000 investment after winning a Shark Tank-style pitch competition at spARK Labs.
Abbadi earned the top prize for LUMIVO, a platform that helps students discover scholarships, internships and fellowships through a personalized survey while tracking application deadlines. The judges selected her concept from six finalists who spent the summer building businesses from scratch.
The competition capped an eight-week accelerator hosted by the Harrington Foundation, founded by entrepreneur and investor Kevin Harrington, in partnership with Lemonade Standers. The latter organization was created by former Boeing executives Julie Bennett and Emily French after careers in marketing, operations and business strategy, where they negotiated multimillion-dollar contracts and led large corporate teams. They now use that experience to teach entrepreneurship through hands-on challenges rather than traditional classroom instruction…