Student-run businesses get a start-up

Jul 27, 2016 Kassandra Parisi Albany County, Business, Colonie, News, Schenectady County, Schools, Towns

The four teams of students and their advisors, Philip Stocchetti, back row far right, and Matthew Cusack, back row, second from right. Submitted photo

LOUDONVILLE- Four young businesses led by Siena students are getting a leg up thanks to scholarships provided by a local organization that specializes in small growth in companies.

New York BizLab, a Schenectady based organization that works to provide training and acceleration to small businesses in order to help them grow. Four start up companies led by Siena students were selected to win the scholarships at the end of the six-week Stocchetti Summer Accelerator program that took place on Siena’s campus earlier this month, according to a press release. Antonio Civitella, a Siena College graduate and founder and president of the New York BizLab, said he was impressed by the students at the Accelerator program.

“It is exciting to see the great ideas these students have come up with,” Civitella said. “I am also gratified to see that these students have the technological backgrounds to actually build their products. Helping these students is precisely why I started the BizLab, so we can provide opportunities to the best and brightest students coming out of our local colleges,” Civitella said in a statement.

The students’ companies focus on different areas, from a solar company providing solar-powered products in a one-for- one model to simultaneously provide solar electricity in developing countries, to a mobile teaching app to assist instructors and students as they learn complex repetitive maneuvers such as dance moves or karate steps. The companies are called companies, Sundial, TeachMe, LiftOff and Bizi Media Co.

The companies will each receive an Affiliated Company Scholarship. Through the BizLab Affiliate Program, the companies have access to BizLab events, and limited use of a start-of- the-art conference room. They also have access to the Capital Region Chamber, according to a press release.

“The Capital Region Chamber is pleased to partner with the Bizlab in the development and growth of small business and entrepreneurship in our region,” Chamber President Chuck Steiner said in a statement.

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Kassandra Parisi