Ellen Wang develops a vision of the Sunrise Venture Pitch Competition and contacts the Irvine mayor Farrah Khan for support of the Sunrise Venture Pitch Competition.
Mayor Khan provides a 500$ grant for the Sunrise Venture Pitch Competition.
The Sunrise team is born! Amador Valley junior Sunny Moon joins as the Chief Technology Officer and Publicist of NorCal, Northwood High junior Maya Iyengar joins as the Director of Outreach, Northwood High freshman Amber Chih joins as the Publicist of SoCal.
University High junior Shuba Senthilkumar joins the Sunrise team as the Curriculum Coordinator.
Sunrise Venture obtains various in-kind sponsorships from entrepreneurs, and sponsors include IP Lawyer Justin Sanders and entrepreneur Rudy Chavarria for the pitch competition prize package.
Mayor Khan releases an official letter of support for SVPC.
120 students from 19 different high schools across California register for the Sunrise Venture Pitch Competition. Schools include Santa Monica High, Valencia High, Chaparral High, and OSCA.
The Entrepreneurship Curriculum kicks off with 55 students in the first zoom session, How to Craft a 90 Second Pitch. The first speaker is David Ochi, the founding Executive Director of UCI ANTrepreneur Center and Executive Director of the Innovation Center at Cal State Dominguez Hills.
The weekly curriculum + bi-weekly mentorship sessions continue. A total of 20 entrepreneurs, investors, and lawyers act as mentors, speakers, and judges, demonstrating the incredible supportiveness and unity of the OC entrepreneurial community.
The finalist round of the Sunrise Venture Pitch Competition takes off, and 3 winners are selected by the judges! A 4th award of Fan Favorite is determined by audience voting!
First place winner Zaarya Vaid's idea: Shwapz, an online platform allowing kids to exchange used toys.
Second place winner Warren Ng's idea: Struner, an AI tuner that tunes strings to perfection when there is background noise.
Third Place Winners Serena Liu and Queenie Xia's idea: ABC fastener, a safe and environmentally friendly binding tool.
Fan Favorite winners Zeynep Arat and Kieran Lee's idea: PatchPals, transdermal patches replacing oral medicine for kids with epilepsy.
Congrats to all the winners!
The Sunrise team expands by 6 members! Aryanna, Luna, Cindy, Keilah, Cesar, and Madison are selected as officers for the '24-'25 year!
Sunrise Venture launches the VentureSpark Academy in partnership with the Boys and Girls club of Santa Ana. This is the first in-person curriculum we've hosted, and seeks to provide equitable entrepreneurship & financial literacy education for disadvantaged middle and high school students.
Marketing Ambassadors hit the ground running to spread word of the November-December zoom curriculum and January pitch competition in Beckman, Uni, Northwood, Middle College, and Valencia high school!
2nd Entrepreneurship and Pitching zoom curriculum kicks off! This will go on every Monday from 5-6 pm until December 16.
First round video pitch submission is due! In late January, finalists will be announced and proceed until the 2nd round, which will be held in person in February.