StartupCorps holds year-end celebration and awards ceremony, Pink Power wins People’s Choice award [VIDEO]

From pastries to LED lightbulbs, teen after-school programs to robotics kits, the student expo at the StartupCorps Year End Celebration looked more like a professional career fair than a high school student project demonstration.

StartupCorps is an entrepreneurship program that partners with local high schools and other youth organizations to offer weekly classes that focus on launching and growing businesses.

To add to the air of professionalism, participants were given five faux dollars to “invest” in up to five student companies. The “investments” counted as votes toward the People’s Choice award.

Pink Power, an electricity business Janee Huff-Truesdale built with her dad, won the sought after award.

Below watch Huff-Truesdale make her business pitch and find other video from the event held at the University of the Arts:

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gMoyFwbfHL4]

You can see video of some of Startup Corps cofounder Christian Kunkel’s introductory remarks as well as the entire award ceremony below:

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P_F2Ibzwjjg?rel=0]

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VtAPLIvPG60]

Nearly 30 student-created-and-run startups on display celebrated another year for the educational initiative, founded in 2009 by Rich Sedmak and Kunkel, that teaches Philadelphia-area high schoolers how to become entrepreneurs by giving them the mentorship and support to start their own businesses.

More than 100 attendees, including local technology leaders, parents, mentors and friends, crowded around a cluster of tables in the Hamilton Hall University of the Arts atrium listening to business pitches.

To see some examples of students pitching their businesses check out the videos below:

Bright Ideas! Technology, a business that seeks to make it cost effective to replace incandescent lightbulbs with more energy efficient LED lightbulbs.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WgR9I0hKXHI]

Engineerables, a business that offers robotics kits to children ages four to six.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u3n2QLZ5DKQ?rel=0]

Project Academy, a social network for schools and students using project-based learning.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qm8DOKs1isY]

Monster Super Chargers creates super chargers that drastically increase the horsepower of average automobiles.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_iVftcWRP68?rel=0]