Clients of two BC Law clinical programs have won top prizes at recent entrepreneurship competitions. ScholarJet, one of Roxbury-based tech incubator Smarter in the City’s cohort members and a client of BC Law’s Community Enterprise Clinic (CEC), took first place in the VietChallenge, held at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
VietChallenge is an international, highly respected global entrepreneurship competition for Vietnamese, and the 2017 event included 176 teams from 23 countries. The top award comes with a $20,000 prize.
Tuan Ho and Joseph Alim, a pair of mechanical engineering majors from Northeastern University, co-founded ScholarJet with the goal of revolutionizing how students will earn scholarships. ScholarJet incentivizes students to compete for scholarships through action-based challenges in the fields of science, technology, engineering, art, and mathematics, as well as through athletic performances.
BC students Keith Guo ’17 and Alex Porter ’17 (pictured above) have been working closely with ScholarJet all year long in the CEC. Under the guidance of BC Law Visiting Clinical Professor Sandy Tarrant, student attorney Porter revised the company’s bylaws to bring it into compliance with Delaware law, issued shares to the co-founders, created the company website’s privacy policies and terms of use, and drafted a videography and photography release. Moreover, Porter helped ScholarJet obtain its Massachusetts Foreign Corporation Certificate of Registration.
This semester, ScholarJet is preparing to launch its innovative web platform that connects students with educational institutions and individual donors. The company’s rapid growth presented the founders with new complex legal challenges. Under the supervision of Paul Tremblay, the director of the Community Enterprise Clinic and Clinical Professor of Law, student attorney Guo counseled ScholarJet on a variety of issues, including its proposed partnerships with a private university and a non-profit organization. During this process, Guo conducted research on credit card payment compliance and on the ins and outs of fiscal sponsorship arrangements. In addition, Guo has drafted a memorandum of understanding and is currently completing a grant proposal and a fiscal sponsorship agreement.
Separately, two clients of BC Law’s Entrepreneurship & Innovation Clinic (EIC) took home all three prizes at Smarter in the City’s Pitch Night. Food Truck Stars, counseled by Ramona Barrett ’17 in Fall 2016 and Ji-Su ’17 Park in Spring 2017, won the $5,000 first place prize, and Pulse 24/7, counseled by Kayla Acklin ’17 in Fall 2016 and Samantha Gross ’18 in Spring 2017, won both the runner-up prize and the People’s Choice prize, each worth $2,500. Both teams thanked BC Law for the stellar work that the clinic’s students have done in helping them reach their goals. Microsoft donated a Surface Pro to all teams that pitched.
