Fall 2022 Winners of Bootcamp 1.0!
December 2022 (Lexington, Ky) - Congratulations to the Fall 2022 Entrepreneurs Bootcamp 1.0 teams! The Von Allmen Center for Entrepreneurship (VACE), in the Gatton College of Business & Economics, is proud to announce the top 10 early-stage companies that will be receiving startup capital and moving on to Bootcamp 2.0 in the Spring 2023 semester. These awards are generously sponsored by The Institute for the Study of Free Enterprise.
Monday Section Winning Teams
1st place - $2,000 | Advosense
Erin Webb is community entrepreneur and the team leader of Advosense.
Advosense is committed to improving geriatric care for patients and clinicians. Our first product, the Sensa system, empowers clinicians to provide easier and higher quality care by streamlining the incontinence care process. Click here to view our website.
Email: erin@advosense.com | Connect on LinkedIn
2nd place - $1,700 | Tranquil
Vaughn Holder is a University of Kentucky alum, currently teaching as adjunct faculty at the University of Kentucky's College of Agriculture. He works full time in Ag-Biotech with Alltech.
Tranquil is a startup that will provide a nutritional supplement that significantly alleviates the symptoms of IBS-D. IBS affects approximately 12% of the US population (about 40 million people) and IBSD makes up the largest proportion of people with IBS (40%, 16 million people). IBS has no known cause and cannot be cured. Therefore alleviation of symptoms is the only option. Most known treatment options have side effects that may affect the quality of life patients. This nutritional solution is drug free and comes in a protein shake form and significantly reduces IBS-D symptoms with no known side effects.
Email: vaughnbholder@yahoo.com | Connect on LinkedIn
3rd place - $1,400 | Navigating Higher Ed
Professor Bertin Louis is the founder of Navigating Higher Education, which offers coaching and consultations for graduate students and aspiring tenure-track faculty members. Whether you are looking to gain entrance into a graduate school program or secure an academic position, working with NHE can improve your chances of realizing your professional academic goals. Tina Ho was a contributing team member on this project (email: cho294@uky.edu).
Bertin M. Louis, Jr. is an Associate Professor of Anthropology and African American & Africana Studies (AAAS) at the University of Kentucky and served as the inaugural Director of Undergraduate Studies for AAAS (2019-2021). He is President of the Association of Black Anthropologists, past Editor of Conditionally Accepted, and a current regular contributor to Higher Ed Jobs. He is a 2015 UTK Quest Scholar of the week, a 2013 Southeastern Conference (SEC) Travel Grant Award recipient and a 2012 American Anthropological Association (AAA) Leadership Fellow. Dr. Louis studies the growth of Protestant forms of Christianity among Haitians transnationally, which is featured in his New York University Press book, “My Soul is in Haiti: Protestantism in the Haitian Diaspora of the Bahamas (2015)” which was a Finalist for the 2015 Haitian Studies Association Book Prize in the Social Sciences. He also studies human rights and statelessness among Haitians in the Bahamas and antiracist social movements in the US South. Dr. Louis teaches courses in Black Studies and Cultural Anthropology and he received his PhD in 2008 from the Department of Anthropology at Washington University in Saint Louis.
Dr. Louis also informs students, faculty, and the public about Haitian history and culture. Since the 2010 Haiti earthquake, he has appeared on WATE-6 News at 5:30, Tennessee This Week, The George Korda Radio Show, The Hubert Smith Radio Show and UT Today. As part of those efforts, he also created the FOCUS ON HAITI website for the Association of Black Anthropologists, which served as the main Haiti informational website for the American Anthropological Association.
Email: bertin.louis@uky.edu | Connect on LinkedIn
4th place - $1,000 | Revelation Woodworking
Mark Litvin is a Kentucky community entrepreneur and the team leader of Revelation Woodworking. This startup is a business focused on making heirloom quality wooden products including tables, cutting/charcuterie boards, as well as doors. Our goal is simple, to make memorable items that will last generations upon generations. The business sparked from a simple desire to make items that far surpassed the quality of larger corporations, and not for the sake of beating them but rather to make items that last longer and operate better. Layla Angeles Plakosh was a contributing team member on this project (email: lan231@uky.edu).
Email: mdlitvin@gmail.com | Connect on Facebook
5th place - $900 | Be Fly Fitness
Demethra Sanders is a Lexington-based community entrepreneur and the founder of a new startup concept called Be Fly Fitness. Erica Shroeder was a contributing team member on this project (email: erica.schroeder@frontier.edu).
There are plenty of places to workout but is there a place that you actually feel comfortable? That you really feel good about working out and are getting the best benefit? What if your skin color made a difference in how you work out? What if your body type doesn't match the person next to you? Now do you feel comfortable?
Be Fly Fitness is different. ALL are welcome and here comfortable is our focus! Bungee cord fitness is the new way to work out. If you have ever struggled with your joints, if you have ever felt embarrassed trying to do a push up or a sit up, if you just want a place that you feel like you want to be you, this is it! We will also offer regular step and yoga classes. Not only will this be a place where you will feel comfortable working out but this will be a place to find the perfect health and wellness that you need!
Health and wellness is also the key to feeling comfortable! Whether it will be healthy eating on a budget, healthy living advice, needing a good doctor's recommendation, hair care, nail care, skin care, or mental well-being, we will be here. Even if you just need to sit and be, we will be here.
Our ultimate goal is to have a place where you just feel comfortable in your own skin. Black, brown, white, peach, orange or any other color along with being comfortable in your own body. Big, medium or small are you comfortable?
Email: demethras@aol.com | Connect on LinkedIn
Thursday Section Winning Teams
1st place - $2,000 | Cultured Remedy LLC
Dr. Jitana P. Benton-Lee is the Founder and CEO of Cultured Remedy LLC. She is a professor at Northern Kentucky University, in the College of Health & Human Services, School of Nursing.
Cultured Remedy, LLC is a virtual clearinghouse for engaging and training nurses and their BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, and People of Color) patients in equity-minded competencies, knowledge-building, and praxis related to decreasing social health inequities. The primary purpose of this entrepreneurial idea is to alleviate two of the three B’s (behavior and bias), as the third B, biology) is immutable. Both nurses and patients can access virtual resources, tools, training opportunities, and assessment guides.
Cultured Remedy, LLC will offer self-paced learning opportunities – free and fee-based – with audiovisual elements inclusive of closed caption for videos, audio transcription, consistent navigation, standard course formatting, plain language, clear instruction, and descriptive hyperlinks in blended and virtual settings.
Email: bentonleej1@nku.edu | Connect on LinkedIn
2nd place - $1,700 | BossiRainbow
Dr. Jaleesa Wells is an Assistant Professor of Arts Administration at the University of Kentucky, and the Founder & CEO of BossiRainbow. She teaches courses on the arts and artists in society, sustainable leadership in the arts, and management and organization in the arts and culture sector across the BA, MA, and PhD programs. Prior to joining the UK faculty, Dr. Wells taught in the areas of arts and festivals management and international cultural policy, as well as entrepreneurship, venture planning, and creativity and innovation at higher education institutions in Scotland and England (“the other UK”).
BossiRainbow is a family-owned and operated wearable art enterprise. What started as a creative practice in England has become an emerging creative enterprise based in Berea KY. We bring together a diverse range of art and craft practices such as bead-making, wire-wrapping, and material collage to hand-make and handcraft our wearable art from raw materials. Our main project focuses for the bootcamp are to develop our business story as part of our authentic marketing, and explore sustainable packaging for our artwork.
Dr. Wells’ research focuses on the hybrid intersections between culture and enterprise, such as the emergence of social enterprise in the arts and culture sector, of which she was awarded the ‘President’s Award for Best Paper by an Early Career Researcher’ at the 39th Annual Conference for the Institute for Small Business and Entrepreneurship in Paris, France. Concurrently, she conducts creative and collaborative scholarship that investigates the experiences of Black women in cultural institutions, as well as scholarship exploring the making, unmaking, and use of institutional data as an creative practice. Dr. Wells also maintains an arts practice and embeds her research with creative methods such as poetry, performance, and visual art.
Professionally, Dr. Wells worked as an arts administrator in the performing arts: serving as the finance manager of a spectacle theatre company in Chicago, and working in public relations, marketing, and ticket office management in opera houses throughout the country such as Central City Opera and Glimmerglass Opera. Dr. Wells also served as an AmeriCorps member with the Homeless and Housing Coalition of Kentucky and Habitat for Humanity of Metro Louisville, where she was awarded the honor of joining the Honorable Order of Kentucky Colonels.
Dr. Wells earned her Ph.D. in Entrepreneurship at Strathclyde Business School in Scotland, U.K., a Master of Arts in Arts Administration and Policy from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, and a Bachelor of Science in Theatre Management with a minor in Business Administration from the University of Evansville.
Email: bossirainbow@gmail.com | Connect on LinkedIn
3rd place - $1,400 | Cultivate Recovery Center
Carolyn Benedict is an MBA student at The University of Kentucky in the Gatton College of Business and Economics. She is the Founder and CEO of Cultivate Recovery Center (CRC) located in Louisville, Kentucky. The CRC is a Drug and Alcohol treatment facility and focuses on alternative therapies to help people recover form addiction. The vision for this facility will be on 6+ acres of land and resemble a working farm.
Alternative treatment programming includes:
-Animal assisted therapies (including equine)
-Gardening
-Cooking
-Art Therapies / wood shop
-Kinetic Wellness
-Massage / Acupuncture / Chiropractor
-Hypnotherapy
These alternative therapies are in addition to standard behavioral therapies that are widely used in drug and alcohol treatment centers. There are only a few private treatment centers in Louisville and they market locally - this would start as a local treatment center, but the idea is to market nationwide. Carolyn would like to plan and construct the initial flagship Louisville. Her goal is the scale the treatment program in order for it to be replicated, and additional treatment facilities across Southern & Mid-West states and become a national name in quality addiction treatment.
Email: carolynrose.benedict@uky.edu
4th place - $1,000 | Dreamers & Survivors Support Network
Professor Francis Musoni is a faculty member at The University of Kentucky in College of Arts & Sciences. He is the Founder and CEO of The Dreamers and Survivors Support Network (DSSN). Contributing team members on this endeavor were Dr. Fred Bebe, Faraneh Fathi, and Ryessia Russell.
DSSN is a non-profit organization that provides educational and life skills support services to students and young adults from immigrant families and other underserved groups in the Commonwealth of Kentucky. Their work is built around three major pillars: (1) An Educational Support Program, which provides tutoring services to students in middle school, high school and college who need support to finish their studies on time. Our tutors provide individualized teaching, which makes it easier to identify clients’ areas of difficulty and help them to meet their educational goals. (2) Our Life Skills Support program provides mentorship and coaching on job applications, personal finance management and other independent living skills to high scholars, college students and young adult school leavers. (3) Lastly, our Mental Health Support Program, which provides counseling support on issues relating to substance use, positive interpersonal relationships, conflict resolution and others.
Email: fmu223@uky.edu | Connect on LinkedIn
5th place - $900 | Afford
Linda Russell is a former University of Kentucky staff member and Lexington-based community entrepreneur. She is currently employed at Bryant's Rental as an Event Consultant. Previous work experience includes - Private Dining/Catering Manager at DV8 Kitchen and Saul Good two weeks before Covid hit in March of 2020. Worked at Apiary Fine Catering & Events during the pandemic and she found herself longing to be back in the non-profit sector doing something that comes naturally to me to contribute to a bottom line. Recently, she realized a gap for much needed services for baby Boomers and their families. Boomers are the largest living adult population until 2019. According to the US Census Bureau, US boomers will remain the second-largest population group in 2022, comprised of 69.6 million people ages 58 to 76.
Linda is the Founder & CEO of Afford, which is a service-based platform for Boomers that involves experts in the field of Aging to develop a format/prototype for families to prepare for all aspects of the Encore Stage; from encore career, downsizing, to end of life events. Other service packages will include half-day conferences and consults all focused on Boomers their children and friends. Make it a gift to each other to be prepared and help them to understand that you will honor their wishes and the things that they hold dear for the next generation. The vision for Afford is to help bring families closer together and be therapeutic and cathartic. It will lessen the helplessness and lonely feelings family members will have at the end. The contributing team member on this project was Marianne Peterson.
Email: lfdrussell@gmail.com | Connect on LinkedIn
