Global Youth Connection Wins Top Award in TIE Competition

Student group captures $15,000 prize for legal, accounting, IP, and web-branding services

WOOSTER, Ohio - Global Youth Connection (GYC), a nascent enterprise developed by an innovative group of students at The College of Wooster, has received another major honor. The group, which consists of seven Wooster students, received the $15,000 top prize for legal, accounting, IP, and web-branding services at The International Entrepreneur (TIE) competition earlier this month in Beachwood, Ohio.

GYC, which was established through the Burton D. Morgan Center for Entrepreneurship at Wooster, is a microfinance organization that provides a web-based direct-lending service for youth who are trying to start up their own businesses around the world. The goal of GYC is to offer low-interest loans to young entrepreneurs in developing countries.

"Of the 46 entries received for TIE competition, only five were actually selected to present during the competition," said Chris Miller, a rising senior from Jamaica who delivered the proposal along with Maaz Tasneem Khan, a rising senior from Pakistan. "We barely managed to even get transportation to go to the competition, so being selected as a finalist upon arrival was quite a surprise."

Each of the finalists was asked to give a five-minute presentation followed by a five-minute Q&A session in front of a panel of venture capitalists. The judges made their selections on the basis of the clarity and quality of the presentation, the innovative nature of the concept, the potential impact of the solution, and the realistic attainability of the proposal.

This is the third honor in recent months for GYC, which also includes Matthew McNaughton, Esther Chhakchhauk, Olivia Parsons, Matthew Miller, and Bilal Paracha. Earlier, the group received the $1,000 first prize in Wooster's Center for Entrepreneurship Idea Competition in November and the $5,000 grand prize at the Center for Entrepreneurship competition in April.

Wooster's Center for Entrepreneurship is supported by The Burton D. Morgan Foundation, which works to strengthen the free-enterprise system by investing in organizations and institutions that foster the entrepreneurial spirit, and the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation, which collaborates with partners to advance entrepreneurship in America and improve the education of children and youth.