Detroit Produce Team Wins Contest
Team Get Fresh Detroit, with its plan to create and distribute a packaged produce product targeted to the city’s party stores, won the $1,000 funding prize at the April 17 business plan competition for the UM Social Venture Creation course.
Team Get Fresh Detroit
The student team wants to bring produce to the city because there are no chain grocery stores in Detroit and most residents shop at corner liquor stores.
Four student teams from the Social Venture Creation course were vying for the funding prize, handed out by a judging panel of industry experts.
The other teams had proposed: bringing the Internet to rural schools in Kenya; starting a car-sharing program in Ann Arbor; and providing computer training for health workers in Lesotho.
Team Get Fresh Detroit will launch its initiative with a party April 28. Click here for details. Click here to view their winning presentation.
The Social Venture Creation course, organized by WDI in partnership with the College of Art & Design and the Center for Entrepreneurship at the College of Engineering, is an innovative, action-based learning laboratory that brings students across disciplines at the University of Michigan to work on solving society's challenges together. It was mentioned in a 2009 New York Times article on making college more relevant.
It is taught by Moses Lee, WDI’s marketing and communications manager for its GlobaLens website, and Nick Tobier, an associate professor in the School of Art & Design. Lee also is managing editor of NextBillion.To read an article from the Michigan Daily on the competition, click here.
