Three Gateway Community & Technical College students transformed an idea into a prospective business thanks to the college’s first entrepreneurship class.
Last week, Robert Turner, Dustin Jones and Mea Castrucci pitched VISUALAIZE, an idea for an app that uses artificial intelligence to aid with reading comprehension, to a live audience at Aviatra Accelerators Covington headquarters.
“It was just an opportunity for them to share their idea and get a feel for what an actual pitch is if they came up with a venture creation and how it might go and answering questions from the audience, etc.,” instructor Sandy Haig said. “I just wanted them to have that experience.”
Although they are enrolled in classes at Gateway, the trio are currently high school seniors; Turner and Castrucci go to Bellevue, while Jones attends Ludlow. Haig said she wanted the pitch to be a valuable learning experience for the students.
So, how does VISUALAIZE work exactly?
Users would be able to insert an excerpt of a book into the VISUALAIZE AI image generator by reading the text into a microphone. From there, the AI would create an image that depicts what happens in the except. The image acts as a visual reading comprehension aid for the user that, in theory, would help the user better understand the text by providing a visual reference.
The students came to the idea through researching literacy and reading comprehension. Haig said the trio interviewed over 100 students from different Northern Kentucky public schools.
“They ran with that idea,” Haig said.
In recent years, Gateway has placed a greater emphasis on improving its trade education programs. The college offers courses in heating and ventilation, plumbing, welding and construction.
Due to the growth of the programs, Gateway officials wanted to bolster their curriculum by allowing students to learn the basics of running their own businesses. That way, if they ever decide to go into business for themselves or start a new enterprise, they already know what it takes.
“What they’re seeing a lot is that those people who come out of gateway with those certifications in the end the degrees, they will eventually own their own businesses — they’ll be an independent plumber — so they know the trade, but they don’t know the business part of it,” Aviatra Accelerators CEO Jill Morenz told LINK nky. “That’s a big part of why entrepreneurship is such a great fit for Gateway.”
Morenz said she hopes Gateway can serve as a direct pipeline to Northern Kentucky University’s entrepreneurship program.
“That’s why entrepreneurship is such a great fit for a Gateway because of that whole link, a lot of the people coming out of there are going to be entrepreneurs, although that might not be their initial reason for getting into.”
In addition, Haig said Gateway wants to improve access to entrepreneurial education for non-traditional students.
“I think that it’s hitting a different demographic,” she said.
