The

Citizens Advocate
Coppell, Texas
INCubatoredu@CHS Final Pitch Night
By Shannon Morgan

At the Varidesk Headquarters on May 24, 2017, three teams and one individual student from
Coppell High Schools INCubatoredu@CHS program competed against one another in the Final
Pitch Night, where they presented their finished business project.

INCubator is a program at CHS that teaches students entrepreneurial and business skills.
Students are required to develop an idea for a product and work with local business owners,
who also help teach and mentor students throughout the class.

The idea is that teams pitch their business plans in a fashion that resembles the television show
Shark Tank, where business owners present their product to a panel of potential investors.

Acting as potential investors and judges of the competition were Coppell Major, Karen Hunt,
Coppell City Council Member, Cliff Long, former Texas House of Representatives member,
Bennett Ratliff and former Dallas Cowboy, Isiah Stanback.

Originally starting out as 14 teams of students, the teams selected to present on Final Pitch
Night had been working since February to perfect and finalize the details and business plan of
their products.

Celeste Johnson was the individual student that was chosen to give her pitch for her fashion
line, Aplomo, due to how successful it has been so far. Her designs have been featured in a
number of fashion shows in Texas and she plans to keep expanding and creating her own
designs.

The winning team, students Izzy Hall, Cassie Hooper, Michelle Stukey and Gabe Vinluan, pitched
an idea for an eyewear company called Perspective. Their concept involved using 3D printing
in order to make custom eyeglasses that would be an exact fit to a costumers face.

Izzy (Hall) and I both wore glasses already, so when we were first introduced to the classroom
we were told to make a product based on the issues that we had already had, Hooper said. I
think thats what helped us actually take it this far, because it was something that we would
want.