Last Friday, the Class of 2013 wrapped up the second Venture for America Training Camp at Brown University. If you’ve been following along, you know that along with daily trainings and speakers, the Fellows redesigned the VFA website, created their own products, and had to make as much profit as possible in 10 days. To see more on our challenge winners and impressive speakers, and read reflections directly from the Fellows, you can look back through our Training Camp Blog.
Read on for more on the final days of training:

The Final Challenge

For the last challenge, the Fellows were charged with individually creating as much value as possible for their company, city, or Venture for America. Some Fellows prepared for their upcoming start dates by becoming experts in a new program, software, or language in a matter of days. Others began creating relationships in their cities or came up with ways the Fellows could stay in touch once they land across the country.
Check out some of our favorite projects below:
Alex Rawitz created a public speaking module for Startup Effect, a non-profit co-founded by four VFA Fellows that teaches entrepreneurship in middle schools in Detroit and New Orleans and is looking to expand its program this year. In only 48 hours, Alex created a full lesson plan including worksheets, role playing activities and accompanying presentations that could be immediately implemented in the classroom.
While Venture for America offers its Fellows mentors through its network and encourages Fellows to find their own mentors on the ground in their cities, Ali Sheppard created Fellow 2 Fellow: a peer mentoring network to connect Fellows across classes and cities. In two days, Ali identified a need, developed a program, evaluated interest, identified leaders to pilot the program, and developed a matching process outline to help implement the program.
Throughout his challenge, Eric Olson embodied value creation by identifying a real and immediate problem for his company– a bug in the software they provide– and spent his time digging in to find the solution. At the end of the two days, Eric had added significant and evident value; he actually improved the product he will be working on in a real way for his company’s users.

Congratulations to our Top Fellows

Once the Fellows wrapped up their final challenge, we ended Training Camp on a high note with the VFA Pentathalon and our Awards Dinner.
The Awards Dinner recognized a handful of Fellows for outstanding performance in various areas throughout Training Camp, including winning teams from challenges, top presentations, and those Fellows who demonstrated outstanding value creation on the final challenge.
The most prestigious of these awards– the Top Performing Fellow Award– is awarded to those Fellows who demonstrated overall outstanding performance, achievement, and integrity throughout Training Camp. We believe these Fellows embody the spirit of Venture for America and serve as an example of what a Fellow should be. Congratulations Astrid Schanz-Garbassi, Sean Jackson, Matt Fulton, Jon Hills, Mike Wilner, and Shilpi Kumar, who were named Top Performing Fellows for 2013.
We’re so proud of what our Fellows have accomplished over the past five weeks, and are even more excited to see what they are able to do on the ground in their cities over the next five years. Congrats, Class of 2013!

For the past 6 weeks, eight teams of Fellows have been working hard to raise money for their projects and ideas for the chance to get access to the $20,000 VFA Innovation Fund. This week at our Fellow Training Camp in Providence, RI, the Class of 2012 joined us for a reflection on year one and the announcement of our Innovation Fund Winners.
We’re incredibly proud of our Fellows and can’t wait to see what they come up with next. Thank you to our friends at American Express OPEN Forum and RocketHub for making it possible!

First, we’d like to congratulate our first place winner, Startup Effect, on raising over $15,000 and taking home $10,000 from the Innovation Fund. Startup Effect was founded during the inaugural Fellow Training Camp in 2012, when four VFA Fellows saw a need for entrepreneurship education to begin even before college.

For the past year, Brentt Baltimore, Brian Bosche, Mike Mayer, and Billy Schrero have gone into schools in Detroit and New Orleans to help students gain confidence and skills through action-oriented, entrepreneurial activities and challenges. Thanks to the Innovation Fund, they now have $25,000 to expand programming in their cities, and potentially expand to new ones with the help of the Class of 2013.

If you’d like to support Startup Effect and the work they are doing, visit their website startupeffect.org to learn more today!

Runners-up:

Second Place: Rebirth Realty
Rebirth Realty received $6,000, in addition to the $10,000 they raised, to purchase and renovate a house in Detroit for future VFA Fellows.

Third Place: Jinbu
Jinbu received $4,000 for a total of over $14,000 to put toward developing their service that helps Chinese students and job-seekers develop and polish their English application materials.

Jinbu Overview from Jinbu on Vimeo.

 
Name: Zoe Frances Chaves
Hometown: New York City
University: Brown University ’13
Company: Splitwise
Major: Architectural Studies
 
What led you to apply for Venture for America?
I first looked into VFA when a Brown professor that I respect very much, Barbara Tannenbaum, made a plug for it in class. VFA’s big picture goal of catalyzing growth in distressed urban economies immediately resonated with me. I also liked the idea of being surrounded by a cohort of young, energetic, idealistic people as I transitioned out of college- I think having a Fellow family will remove some of the vulnerability inherent to relocating to a new city and starting a new chapter.
What were you doing when you found out you were accepted?
I was waking up from a nap. Needless to say I went from groggy to ecstatic when I heard the news! Then I knocked over the cup of water on my nightstand with my happy gesticulating.
Now that you’re a Fellow, what are you most excited about with regard to VFA? What do you hope to accomplish?
VFA demands that Fellows start adding value to their partner companies on Day 1. It’s an organization that believes in the power of young people and holds my generation to a high standard. I’m really excited to be challenged to contribute, and about the 5-week training camp that VFA will use to help me step up!
If you had to live one place for the rest of your life, where would you choose?
New York City. Specifically Washington Heights, which is the neighborhood in Manhattan where I grew up.
Best thing about Brown: My friends.
Favorite Book: A Passage to India by E.M. Forster.
Favorite childhood TV show: Doug!
Favorite meal: Anything my mom makes! Last Christmas she made me a binder of all the recipes she cooked for me growing up. It was the best present I’ve ever received, but somehow the dishes don’t taste as good when I make them.
Favorite holiday: Christmas. Specifically I love all the music associated with Christmas- I start listening to Ella Fitzgerald’s Christmas CD in September!
Best class you’ve ever taken: Parks and Designed Landscapes in Urban America, offered by the Urban Studies department at Brown. It taught me that parks aren’t just beautiful patches of grass for recreating- they’re tools for promoting health, equality, collective identity and community in our cities. And I got to pitch 2 park plans of my own! I also really enjoyed taking the public speaking course Persuasive Communication, and believe I’ll be leveraging those skills a lot as a Fellow.
Favorite movie quote: I rarely remember direct quotes from movies. I do occasionally like to jokingly tell my friends “you can’t sit with us!!!” (from that fine film, Mean Girls).
Favorite thing to do on Sunday: Go out to brunch.
Favorite entrepreneur: Rebecca Onie, co-founder and CEO of Health Leads. The Health Leads model is so innovative and powerful, and Onie has the skills, drive and team behind her to take it all the way. I worked for the Health Leads Providence site for 4 years and feel that it gave me the abilities and attitude I need to innovate and add value at my VFA partner company.
Favorite cereal: I like to make granola. I add coconut flakes and sliced almonds.
Most worn article of clothing: My Brown University sweatpants.
Favorite sports team: I played IM Volleyball for 2 years at Brown with a bunch of my friends. We were called ‘The Ponies’. That’s the only sports team I can name…
Best trip you’ve ever been on: In Fall 2011 I went to Brazil, South Africa and Vietnam through the International Honors Program. Our team of 33 investigated urban planning and governance across those three developing nations. My favorite part was that we lived with a home stay family in each location- I was incredibly blessed everywhere I went, staying with such interesting, welcoming and intelligent people. Those relationships added so much value to that trip, and my understanding of myself in relation to the global community.
Favorite historical figure: Siddhartha Guatama.
Accomplishment you’re most proud of:  I did a lot of different things at Brown- I studied architecture, I worked at a hospital, and I did research on health disparities in Providence. I’m proud that I can look back on all that and see something cohesive emerge. Thematically I’ve really made a commitment to urban issues and solutions, but what truly unites it all is that I pursued exactly what I wanted with passion and drive. I used to get anxious over the interview question ‘tell me about yourself’ because I would feel like such a spaz, but now I’m able to see and own the big picture of what I’ve been interested in and have accomplished so far in my life.