Daymond John invests in 16-Year-Old Winner’s product at the NFTE Youth Entrepreneurship Challenge.
“Hayley has a great product that solves a big problem,” he says.
16-Year Old Social Entrepreneur Wins National Competition
Vowing To Reduce World Waste
by Kym McNicholas
Hayley Hoverter is just 16- years old. But she has one solution for a major problem facing the world: paper waste. Paper waste accounts for 40% of landfills, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection agency. Her idea is to make soluble sugar packets to distribute to coffee and shops, such as Starbucks and Pete’s, throughout the world. For every box purchased of her innovated products, Hayley’s company, Sweet (dis)Solve, will plant a tree to offset carbon emissions.
Last night she presented her idea at the Network For Teaching Entrepreneurship’s (NFTE) annual National Youth Entrepreneurship Challenge. She won the entire competition. Only 32 students from around the entire United States made the semi-finals, which took place in New York. Twenty-five thousand students competed throughout the country for the chance to win $10,000 to take their business to the next level.
“She was one of the shyest girls in the class when we started, and through our program Hayley became a confident entrepreneur who looked like a young Fortune 500 CEO giving a quarterly investor presentation,” says Freeman. “She was powerful, passionate, and incredibly inspiring.”
Beyond simply national recognition, Daymond John, judge on ABC’s Shark Tank and Founder, President and CEO of sports clothing company FUBU—“For Us, By Us,” says he’s investing in her company alongside two other judges from last night’s competition.
» Read the full article on Forbes.com
