Tag: Huizenga Business Innovation Academy

Student Social Entrepreneurs Support Project in Nigeria

NSU students Rohalio Trigger, Simbarashe Mtasa, and Maria Asimopoulou at the Mission Munchies’ Trail Mix product launch.

Students in NSU’s Huizenga Business Innovation Academy in the H. Wayne Huizenga College of Business and Entrepreneurship set out a couple of years ago on a mission dedicated to helping underserved people. They wanted to develop a product or service that could generate revenue they would then donate to a struggling community.

The students connected with South Florida resident Don Campion, owner of Banyan Air Service, an airline that flies to the Bahamas, the Caribbean and South America. Campion and his wife, Sueanne, are revitalizing a 100-bed hospital and a 300-student college of nursing in the rural town of Egbe, Nigeria, in southwest Africa. Campion was also inducted into the College of Business and Entrepreneurship’s Entrepreneur and Business Hall of Fame in 2021.

In collaboration with the Campions, the students created a peanut-based snack they could sell first on NSU’s campus, then market off-campus. After the students established their product’s manufacturing and packaging, Mission Munchies was born in September 2023.

The venture is committed to supporting the hospital revitalization project and economic growth in Egbe by donating 100 percent of its profits from its Nigerian-inspired product sales. Their efforts resulted in a $3,000 donation to the Egbe cause last December.

Heading up the project are:

  • CEO Maria Asimopoulou, an entrepreneurship major from Thessaloniki, Greece
  • Rohalio Krigger, an entrepreneurship major from Lauderhill, Fla.
  • Marlyn Santana Rosa, a finance major from the Dominican Republic
  • Alma Rivera-Brizo, a finance major from Miami, Fla.
  • Amanda Levy, a business management major from New York
  • Simbarashe Mtasa, a business management major from Harare, Zimbabwe

“Just think, as the Mission Munchies snack grows and as students continue to innovate with other products the impact their class can make a world away,” Campion said. “As this product grows, students will be researching what product or service could be mentored at Egbe to employ villagers and bring a level of commerce to the town.”

NSU students Amanda, Marlyn, Maria and Alma cook some of the Mission Munchies ingredients.

Mission Munchies is a trail mix made of peanuts, raisins, banana chips, pumpkin seeds, sunflower seeds, chocolate and Kuli Kuli, a West African snack. The students buy their products from a trusted wholesaler and mix them altogether. They make their Kuli Kuli from scratch using peanuts, ginger, cinnamon, sugar and salt.

Don Campion, CEO of Banyan Air Service, hosts Huizenga Business Innovation Academy students Maria Asimopoulou and Nicholas Wiseman at the Egbe Medical Mission Gala.

The project has had its ups and downs, Asimopoulou said.

“Some of the successes are seeing our donations making an impact on people’s lives,” she said. “Some of the challenges are manufacturing in high demand and bringing customers to the company.”

With the support of Jose Brache, assistant professor and academic director of the Huizenga Business Innovation Academy, College of Business and Entrepreneurship, Dean Andrew Rosman and Campion, the students say they’ve learned the importance of shared goals and objectives as well as the power of collaboration.

Social entrepreneurship endeavors such as Mission Munchies address social and environmental challenges through innovative and sustainable business models, Brache said. They’re increasingly relevant in our economy because they combine the efficiency of free markets with a social purpose that is “Best for Our World,” consistent with the mantra of NSU’s business college.

“In going through the experience of running a business that has a social purpose, our students develop their business vision, leadership, creativity and capacity to take initiative in the contexts of high uncertainty,” he said. “And while they further polish these significant entrepreneurial competencies, they develop an awareness on their own with the potential to make a contribution to humanity.”

Posted 02/20/24

NSU Celebrates Legacy of Carl DeSantis at Anniversary Event

Carl DeSantis’ son Damon address the crowd at the anniversary ceremony.

The H. Wayne Huizenga College of Business and Entrepreneurship paid a special tribute on Dec. 16 to the late Carl DeSantis during a 20th anniversary celebration of the Nova Southeastern University building named in his honor.

For more than two decades, DeSantis was instrumental in moving NSU forward as a highly respected higher education institution when it comes to educating future business leaders and entrepreneurs.

Born in Massachusetts and raised in Florida, DeSantis was a lifelong entrepreneur with a natural flair for business and marketing. He launched Sundown Vitamins in his garage and built it from a mail order company into the world’s largest vitamin manufacturer. The company would later become Rexall Sundown, growing into a Fortune 100 company while revolutionizing the health supplements industry.

In 2000, Rexall Sundown was sold for $1.8 billion. DeSantis immediately began to invest in—and pioneer—a series of companies while also continuing to be a passionate philanthropist. DeSantis was inducted into NSU’s Entrepreneur and Business Hall of Fame in 1998. In 2002, DeSantis pledged a leading gift to the campaign to relocate NSU’s business college from a small off-site space to a 261,000-square-foot, state-of-the-art facility on the NSU Fort Lauderdale/Davie Campus. In January 2004, the Carl DeSantis Building was opened as the home of the H. Wayne Huizenga College of Business and Entrepreneurship (HCBE).

Among those on hand for the anniversary celebration were HCBE Dean Andrew Rosman, NSU President George L. Hanbury II, Provost Ronald J. Chenail, Dean Emeritus Randy Pohlman, Carl’s son Damon, Carl’s daughter Debbie, event co-chair Arlene Pecora of the Signature Grand, and Jeff Perlman of CDS International Holdings.

Posted 01/14/24

Hall of Fame Celebrates Entrepreneurial Trailblazers

On Tuesday night, Oct. 10, 2023, under the lights of the Rick Case Arena, Nova Southeastern University’s H. Wayne Huizenga College of Business and Entrepreneurship honored three outstanding regional entrepreneurs at its 34th Annual Entrepreneur and Business Hall of Fame.

The Entrepreneur and Business Hall of Fame is a celebration of the remarkable achievements and contributions made by trailblazers in the business world. Over the years, this event has honored some of the most influential entrepreneurs and business leaders, including Guy Harvey, Rita Case, Mario Murgado, Terry Stiles, H. Wayne Huizenga, Carl A. DeSantis, and Beverly Raphael.

This year, the Entrepreneur and Business Hall of Fame recognized:

  • Antonio “Tony” Argiz, the South Florida managing partner at BDO USA, a premier accounting, consulting, financial advisory, and tax organization.
  • Leon Ellman, chairman of the JLE Group, a private equity investment and management consulting firm based in Fort Lauderdale.
  • S. Donald Sussman, a hedge fund investor with 30 years of experience and the founder and chief investment officer of the Paloma Fund, a billion-dollar-plus investment fund.

Dean Andrew Rosman of NSU’s H. Wayne Huizenga College of Business and Entrepreneurship addresses the crowd.

On hand to celebrate the new inductees were many former inductees, NSU President and CEO George L. Hanbury II, NSU Provost Ronald J. Chenail, Board of Trustees Chair Charles L. Palmer, and Dean Andrew Rosman of the H. Wayne Huizenga College of Business and Entrepreneurship (HCBE).

During the event, Rosman acknowledged the recent passing of two of Hall of Famers: Carl A. DeSantis (July 1939-Aug. 2023) and Alexander W. Dreyfoos Jr. (March 1932-May 2023).

President Hanbury also held a moment of silence for those lost and struggling in the war-torn Middle East.

As the new hall of famers were captured in videos, greeted, and celebrated, 300 attendees – including several HCBE students – packed the audience.

Posted 10/12/23

Shark Cage Event Showcases Latest Student-Run Businesses

On Friday, Sept. 1, the Huizenga Business Innovation Academy held its Shark Cage Grand Opening event at the Shark Cage and Mako Hall Lawn. The event provided an opportunity for students to showcase NSU’s newest student-run businesses.

The businesses offered delicious food, amazing products, and beneficial services. You can expect to see these business circulating around campus this semester.

Posted 09/10/23

Academy Student Envisions Bright Future in Business

Jonathan Boulanger sits next to the statue of one of his heroes, the late H. Wayne Huizenga.

Jonathan Ryan Boulanger breathes business.

The 21-year-old from Miramar, Fla., comes from a family built on entrepreneurship. An only child, Jonathan was introduced to the world of business by his mother, Martha, who worked in sales and now real estate, and father, Rejean, who works in the construction remodeling industry. When it comes to role models, Jonathan’s parents are first on his list.

“My mother taught me resilience and determination,” he says. “She taught me good values of being patient, giving back, and following my dreams and goals with perseverance. My father taught me to have a very strong work ethic and to ensure that our family will always be in good standing.”

When talking about his attraction to business, Jonathan hearkens back to fifth grade when he had a chance to role play as a certified public accountant. After that experience he fell in love with “reading about business, history, and writing.” In the years that followed, Jonathan was exposed to Distributive Education Clubs of America (DECA) while in middle school.

“Students from my future high school came to my history class and talked about DECA and how fun it was to compete and attend conferences while learning about business,” he says. “I was hooked.”

Jonathan has had a strong connection to NSU – long before college. While a student at Charles W. Flanagan High School in Pembroke Pines, he took part in speech and debate with DECA. The competitions were held at NSU’s Rick Case Arena.

“I qualified all four years of high school for the DECA States tournaments,” he says. “In 10th grade I placed second in Retail Merchandising Test & Roleplay and was able to compete at the DECA International Career Development Conference in Anaheim, Calif.”

Through a NSU University School’s speech and debate tournament, Jonathan was able to compete in sessions held at NSU’s Carl DeSantis Building, which houses the H. Wayne Huizenga College of Business and Entrepreneurship.

“I thought it was cool that the sessions were hosted at NSU because of the comfy seats and boardroom settings,” he said.

When he’s not diving into business, Boulanger enjoys playing the violin.

The violin, another passion of Jonathan’s, also connected him to NSU. Having played the instrument since sixth grade, Jonathan participated in the Florida Youth Orchestra, where rehearsals were held on Monday nights at NSU University School. Jonathan also played with the quintet Aurora Strings at the Huizenga Pavilion at the Broward Center of the Performing Arts and also at NSU’s Alvin Sherman Library.

Upon graduating from high school in 2019, Jonathan made it official, coming to NSU and studying business administration. He earned his Bachelor of Science in Business Administration (BSBA) with a major in Entrepreneurship and minor in Venture Creation and Property Management. In May, he will earn his Master of Business Administration with a concentration in Finance and International Business as a member of the first cohort of the Huizenga Business and Innovation Academy.

During his time at NSU, Jonathan has immersed himself in opportunities and accolades.

Among those, he is a member of the President’s 64, an elite body of student leaders whose purpose is to strengthen the relationship between NSU and the community. The organization is comprised of 64 hand-picked undergraduate, graduate, and professional students, representing different constituencies of NSU’s diverse student population.

Jonathan created and developed the college’s Student Managed Investment Fund, the first of its kind in the state of Florida. The fund allows students to learn about how to build their own stock market portfolios while trading stocks with real money and creating investor pitches to a Board of Advisors of actual financial professionals.

“This was a legacy project that I created to leave a lasting impact at NSU, and I am excited to continue being involved with it, even past graduation,” he said.

Jonathan also is the co-founder and CEO of Fin Time Pros LLC, a company he created while part of the Innovation Academy. Fin Time Pros prepares college students for life after graduation by “teaching life skills through selling products and consulting.”

In the short-term, upon graduation Jonathan plans to continue his connection with NSU, working as a program coordinator with the Alan B. Levan l NSU Broward Center of Innovation. He’s also going to continue to grow Fin Time Pros beyond NSU to other universities. As for the long-term, Jonathan has his sights set on getting a law degree and starting a practice in business law. He plans to start two to three other companies related to solving social issues.

Jonathan attributes his altruistic pursuits to the late H. Wayne Huizenga, one of his heroes and the namesake of the NSU’s College of Business and Entrepreneurship.

“H. Wayne Huizenga was a positive influence in the South Florida community,” he says. “He left a legacy of institutions to help society, ranging from education to homelessness. Since I benefitted from them as a South Florida resident, I am inspired to follow his footsteps to do the same.”

Boulanger with his mother and father

 

Posted 04/25/23

Business Student Named eMerge Americas Rising Star Recipient

Nicholas Wiseman

Nicholas Wiseman, a Huizenga Business and Innovation Academy (HBIA) undergraduate senior, was recently recognized as an eMerge Americas 2023 Rising Stars recipient. Wiseman will be graduating in May and starting his Master of Business Administration degree program at the H. Wayne Huizenga College of Business and Entrepreneurship.

Not only was Wiseman selected to be one of the 11 award recipients, he was also selected to be on a panel of five graduates representing Miami Dade College, Florida International University, University of Miami, Nova Southeastern University, and Florida Atlantic University. Students on the panel will be discussing their thoughts on the future of technology in the workplace. “Rising Stars powered by Millennium: Perspectives from Miami’s Top Graduate” will be held Thursday, April 20, from 11:45 a.m. to 12:15 p.m. at the Miami Beach Convention Center.

Rising Stars award recipients will have the opportunity to represent their universities at eMerge Americas – the premier tech event in Miami on April 20-21, which convenes 20,000 attendees from around the world, 200-plus speakers and more than  4,000 companies. In addition, the award recipients will be able to connect with potential employers from leading companies.

In addition to Nick’s participation in the eMerge Americas Conference, Claudia Chez Abreu – a Master of Business Administration student with a concentration in Entrepreneurship – will be presenting in the conference as a keynote speaker.

Posted 04/09/23

Student-Run Businesses Prepare for Biz Bash on March 13

The Huizenga Business Innovation Academy presents Biz Bash on Monday, March 13, from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. on the Alvin Sherman Library walkway on Nova Southeastern University’s Davie Campus.

Biz Bash – the largest showcase of student-run businesses at NSU – provides students the chance to impact the NSU community by operating their businesses in unison. About 15 student businesses will be on hand offering such things as Asian cuisine, milkshakes, smoothies, coffee, care boxes, sneakers, graphic designing, and social media marketing services.

Cultivating future business leaders is a priority at NSU’s H. Wayne Huizenga College of Business and Entrepreneurship. For undergraduate students at the college’s Huizenga Business Innovation Academy, launching and operating a business is a fundamental part of their educational experience. The academy focuses on the practice of experiential learning to assist in the development of the competencies portrayed in the academy’s Entrepreneurship Competence Framework.

Posted 02/27/23

Business Spotlight: Solutions to Poverty Drive Entrepreneurial Professor

When Jose Brache was growing up in the Dominican Republic back in the ‘70s and ‘80s it was easy to find poverty – in fact, it’s still prevalent there. The key for Brache, a professor at the H. Wayne Huizenga College of Business and Entrepreneurship, was learning from such conditions.

“I was a Boy Scout and visited many regions of my country and saw the tough reality of many people who were living in the ‘poverty trap,’” he said. “That raised questions and made me think of potential solutions.”

Jose Brache, Ph.D.

Brache’s parents came from humble beginnings and his father became an entrepreneur out of necessity, building a successful real estate development company from nothing. As he watched his father’s progress in the business world, Brache took notes.

“I learned that fundamentally if you are able to find a spot in life where you can create value – and you are flexible and willing to learn from your experiences – you can make a substantial contribution in any field,” he said.

Brache has been living, breathing, and preaching entrepreneurship ever since. He is an economist with a Ph.D. in Management from Adolfo Ibanez University and a Master’s in Applied Economics from Georgetown University. His research interests include international entrepreneurship, open innovation, inter-firm cooperation, SME´s internationalization, technology commercialization, geographic co-location, and innovation management.

Assisting both established and aspiring entrepreneurs with the challenging task of value creation is one of Brache’s passions. He says he strongly believes in building and nurturing innovation and entrepreneurship ecosystems as a pathway toward stronger and better economies.

Brache, also director of the Huizenga Business Innovation Academy, says that coming to NSU gave him an opportunity to see entrepreneurship from its inception.

“The academy is a fantastic academic and scholarship program,” he said. “Students have the opportunity to get funding and run on-campus businesses. They also have a chance to get seed funding at the end of their program. The sheer possibility of making a contribution to the academy and its students was enough to bring me here.”

Brache’s relocation was quite a testimony to Shark Nation’s magnetism. He arrived at NSU in August 2021 from the University of Auckland in New Zealand, where he spent three years as the director of the Master of Commercialization and Entrepreneurship program.

From an entrepreneurial perspective, New Zealand and Florida see the world through different lenses, Brache says, because of their stark differences in other characteristics.

“New Zealand is a developed nation with one of the highest living standards in all of the world,” he said. “Many of the companies that I had the chance to work with had an orientation toward foreign markets because New Zealand only has a population of about five million people.

“In Florida, nascent businesses are exposed to more growing opportunities because of the size of the market in the country. I observe that many startups have a regional or national orientation instead of an international orientation.”

For Brache, those characteristics create an educational opportunity to instill a broader perspective in the students he teaches at NSU.

“I think that it is our responsibility as educators to show that there are many opportunities for Florida startups in foreign markets,” he said.

Knowledge is a two-way street, Brache says, adding that students at NSU are creative and savvy at identifying and developing innovative business opportunities.

“They are interested in topics that are ‘Best for our World,’” he said. “We have academy students with projects that try to solve environmental challenges, develop healthier foods, improve the wellness of people in the community with apps that tackle anxiety and depression, and contribute to those that are more vulnerable with not-for-profit initiatives.”

Posted 06/05/22

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