雪糕裝進“雞蛋托”？ 美少女憑雪糕包裝發明獲萬元創業大獎 Hannah Pucci had only a few minutes to explain her invention and business concept at the CTNext Entrepreneur Innovation Awards in June. The 16-year-old student at Danbury High School was presenting in front of a panel of entrepreneurial experts for the chance to win a US$10,000 grant to advance her invention, Egghead Ice Cream. Pucci’s thoroughly outside-the-carton concept is an ice cream-packing method in which egg-shaped, pre-packaged scoops are offered in an egg carton-like package. This method avoids the hassle of scooping ice cream, offers multiple flavor varieties in one carton and provides portion control. By the time of the CTNext presentation, she had already spent four years pushing this concept forward, and as a regular actress and singer in school plays, she had experience talking about the idea in front of people. She aced the presentation and earned the US$10,000 grant. It’s the latest in a long line of successes for Hannah. This summer UConn Dairy Bar began a trial run — which will last till October — of Egghead Ice Cream. In 2012, Hannah won the Connecticut Invention Convention’s Blue Ribbon Award and Whole Foods’ Food Innovation Award. She has been invited to meet with executives at both Baskin-Robbins and Dippin’ Dots, and she has received guidance and assistance from The Connecticut Small Business Development Center. The center connected her with the UConn School of Engineering, which helped her with the proof of concept and high-volume manufacturing plan for the product. The center encouraged her to pursue a patent for the invention, which was awarded in 2016. Pucci had the idea when she was 11. A sixth-grader at the time, she was in the STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) program at Rogers Park Middle School in Danbury. The class required her to come up with an invention and pitch it at the Connecticut Invention Convention, held each year at UConn’s Gampel Pavilion. Her teacher encouraged the students to think of a problem, then think of an invention that could serve as a solution to that problem. Hannah struggled with the assignment at first. “For weeks I was stuck thinking of the worst problems and solutions,” she says. “They had no market potential.” Then, she saw her mother struggling to scoop ice cream into a cone and thought it would be easier to just pull out a preformed portion of ice cream and pop it into a cone. The concept for Egghead was born. Denise Whitford, a business adviser with the Connecticut Small Business Development Center who has mentored Hannah, says this type of inspiration is what younger people can provide as entrepreneurs. “The unique thing about working with folks like Hannah or other minors is that they look at things differently,” Whitford says. “We as adults tend to cast a lot of experience to what we do and don’t do, and sometimes that’s a barrier for us to do things differently.” (SD-Agencies) | 