Students Awarded Sands, DePodesta Fellowships
Thursday, February 23, 2023
The Carlson School recently announced recipients of the DePodesta Fellowships and Sands Fellowships.
2023 DePodesta Fellowships
Minneapolis-based ECMC Group, in partnership with the Gary S. Holmes Center for Entrepreneurship at the University of Minnesota’s Carlson School of Management, has announced three new fellows joining the John DePodesta Leadership Fellowship program. The program provides graduate students in business, public policy, sociology, or education the opportunity to co-design or launch a new venture in partnership with existing educational organizations that seek to improve the quality of postsecondary education.
This is the fourth year of the fellowship program, which has provided support for ten fellows including this year’s cohort. Initial feasibility grants of $15,000 are awarded annually for up to four students. Subsequent launch grants of up to $75,000 may be made available to students demonstrating strong progress with their concepts, significant potential impact from their venture, and a commitment to operate the venture full-time for at least 12 months post-graduation. Since the program launched, two fellows have received an additional $75,000 to continue their projects.
“Through their fellowships, these students will develop their entrepreneurship skills and take their initial steps to become visible leaders in the education community,” says John Stavig, director of the Holmes Center. “We are proud of the evolution of this program, and we continue to look forward to supporting these innovators as they drive change.”
The fellowship was developed in recognition of John DePodesta, a founding board member and immediate past chair of ECMC Group, who has spent the past 25+ years working to help students succeed.
The 2023 DePodesta Fellows are:
Nida Yamen, MBA ’24
- Proposed Venture: Develop a video-based digital literacy curriculum that is able to impart knowledge for utilizing basic digital and software tools. The goal is to utilize existing video content to better develop a workforce with essential digital skills required to secure stable employment.
- Yamen is a first-year MBA student at the Carlson School with a background in public health and the development of innovation network partnerships in her native India. She is enrolled in the Carlson School’s Customer Discovery course to explore the need for digital training programs designed to serve targeted post-secondary education markets.
Enet Mukurazita, second-year PhD
- Proposed Venture: Through a digital platform, provide educational services to create a collaborative research network that enhances the inclusive and equal participation of women graduate scholars in higher education worldwide.
- Mukurazita is a second-year PhD student in the Department of Organizational Leadership, Policy and Development at the University of Minnesota. She is enrolled in the Carlson School’s Customer Discovery course to conduct additional primary research with researchers in both the United States and her native Zimbabwe.
Zeke Jackson, '23 BSB
- Proposed Venture: Identify barriers and develop alternatives to better utilize available capacity within post-secondary education institutions for high school students. The goal is to reduce the cost of post-secondary education and increase the access to underrepresented groups.
- Jackson is senior at the Carlson School and has served as the Executive Director of People for PSEO since 2018. He currently serves as the undergraduate student body Vice President and is enrolled in the Carlson School’s Customer Discovery course to conduct additional primary research with high school students, administrators and state legislators engaged with post-secondary education alternatives.
2023 Sands Fellows
From addressing food deserts in the Twin Cities to supporting low-income communities in getting access to affordable healthcare options, nine business ventures were selected as 2023 recipients of the Sands Family Social Venture Fellowship.
These nine MBA and master’s students will each receive a $5,000 fellowship to pursue their social ventures with tangible impact in the Twin Cities community. Additional funding is dependent upon advancement of their venture through their MBA entrepreneurship curriculum.
University of Minnesota graduates Bill and Susan Sands established the fellowship in hopes of inspiring future generations of Carlson School MBA students to apply their business expertise to make a major impact on their community and showcase how business can be a force for good.
Now in its eleventh year, 74 Sands Fellows have either partnered with existing organizations or launched new ventures that address important societal issues. Through their fellowships, these students have honed their entrepreneurship skills and taken their initial steps to become visible leaders in the community.
These nine business ventures join two 2022 fellowship winners, which will return for another year. The information below comes directly from the students' applications.
Josh Hansen-Connell, MBA ’24
Proposed Social Venture: Rural Economic Development
Develop methods for condensing and amplifying the power of rural consumers. In doing so, new business models, such as co-ops, can be explored that help rural communities capture and retain value.
Hunter Hoelzel, MBA ’24
Proposed Social Venture: Urban Food Deserts
Investigate different models to address fresh fruit and produce access within food deserts in the Twin Cities. Through this research, I’d like to select a model that would provide the most benefit and access that is also profitable and scalable to other food deserts across the country.
Elijah Holmes, MA CEHD ’23
Proposed Social Venture: DevelopU - Transitioning to Adulthood
Assist youth’s transition into adulthood by providing non-college-attending high school graduates with access to employment and basic financial skills.
Brett Kasper, MBA ’24
Proposed Social Venture: The Eyrie Foundation
Nonprofit organization that seeks to build happier and healthier communities by serving as an accelerator and an advisor to impact-oriented coffee houses. It matches entrepreneurs seeking to launch a coffee house with municipalities that stand to benefit such a business.
Morgan Kerfeld, MBA ’24
Proposed Social Venture: Telo as Social Enterprise
Telo is a student-founded startup that provides innovative solutions for those with mobility limitations through an ecosystem of IoT enabled assistive devices. Starting with the first significant innovation to the rollator walker, Telo hopes to flip the narrative that assistive devices are only for the ill and frail and instead show how they can be catalysts for greater independence, activity, and empowerment for anyone with mobility complications. The objective of my Sands Fellowship is to create an actionable plan for Telo to fully transition to a social enterprise.
Praneeth Punugoti, MBA ’24
Proposed Social Venture: Improving Efficiency of Volunteer Matching
Bridge the gap between the resources needed by the non-profits and the vast talent pool we have access to at the University of Minnesota. The project not only involves mapping people with a non-profit organization, it also gamifies the whole volunteering experience. We aim to bring all the opportunities available in Minnesota onto a single mobile application-based platform. We also aim to expand this to every reputed university nationwide with an active social impact outlook.
Rasheed Muhammad, MBA ’25
Proposed Social Venture: Affordable & Equitable Health Care
Support low-income communities in getting access to affordable healthcare options. Developing a platform that aids low-income people to seek out affordable healthcare services and help to improve the convenience of scheduling, communication, and payments.
Manognya Wunnava, MBA ’24
Proposed Social Venture: Parent Development
Build a conducive environment for child development at home by providing parents with resources, support, and access to peer groups through all the different phases of their child’s life. Through this project, I will support and focus on same-sex partner families, multi-racial and multi-ethnic families, and social groups in the Twin Cities that are still not completely embraced, and help them navigate through parenthood. We spend years studying how to make money but very little on how to be a good human being, much less how to raise one.
Nida Yamin, MBA ’24
Proposed Social Venture: Reproductive Healthcare Among Adolescent Girls
Focus on unraveling the underlying causes of poor health outcomes among adolescent girls aged (14-19) and work towards building sustainable solutions for supporting the teens in their adolescence journey.
Returning 2022 Sands Fellows
Bill McCue and Patrick Wenger
Proposed Social Venture: Educating Consumers on Local Recycling Policies
As the vast majority of industrial plastics are petroleum-derived and thus non-degradable, any plastic not properly recycled or incinerated for energy recovery will spend an indefinite amount of time in landfills. Our vision is to empower environmentally conscious individuals by giving them straightforward information with regard to proper recycling through an application (“app”) based technology. Our app will use a geo-locator that will contain information regarding recycling policies in different municipalities along with guidelines for safe disposal of a variety of different wastes.
AJ Nold
Proposed Social Venture: Shadow Spinner
The Twin Cities boasts a large diversity of talented, creative individuals. Artists often struggle to make a living wage off their art, which forces them to choose between giving up their art or accepting a lower standard of living. Our services will aid local artists in turning their talents into a livelihood. We will not merely subsidize the arts; we will help people make their art profitable for them.