Kids Archives - Serious Startups

BizKids And Ernst & Young Holding Social Startup Contest For Kids!

The Emmy Award winning public television series Biz Kids has teamed up with Ernst and Young for a startup contest for kids. Entrepreneurs are getting younger and younger. We’ve seen sixth graders present at major conferences, 10 year olds make hundreds of thousands of dollars in the app store and a plethora of straight from high school to the accelerator stories in the last few years.

What we haven’t seen yet is a targeted entrepreneurial/startup contest for social entrepreneurship. Kids, that want to make a difference.

That’s the theme behind Ernst & Young, and Biz Kids “Build Your Social Biz” contest.

BizKids has put out a call for social kidtrepreneurs to submit their plans for a business that will help the community. While the ideas will most likely be plentiful and abstract Biz Kids reminds interested kids that a social business or “biz” can be anything from a dog walking business to selling cookies. They warn though, that they are looking for a social business not just “fundraising” projects.

There are five cash prizes up for grabs. The grand prize winner will receive $3,000 in cash for their social business along with a mentor from Ernst & Young. The runner up will receive $1,500 along with mentorship from Ernst & Young. There are three “honorable mention” prizes of $500 cash and each also gets a mentor from Ernst & Young.

Participants fill out the online entry form on www.bizkids.com then upload a one-minute video pitch on why their project should win. Entries will not be judged by the quality of the video but by the presentation of the vision for their social enterprise.

Entries are due December 31, 2012. A panel of judges will cull the top five entrants, and the names will be posted on the Biz Kid$ website by mid-February. The winner will be chosen by popular vote, which will take place over four weeks. Winner will be announced by the end of March. First place will win $3,000 and a lunch with a special guest; runner up will win $1,500; and three honorable mentions will win $500 each. All finalists will be paired with an expert mentor chosen to fit the nature of their business.

Linkage:

Here’s a link to the contest page

More startup news from nibletz.com

Have you seen this?

Ur Daycare Locator Aims To Locate

Ur Daycare Locator aims to locate local daycare centers and schools for your child. The service has been tailored to give raw user-generated reviews and easy to use tools to help you make the best choice for you daycare needs. With only a few simple steps you will be able to find several daycare centers in your area or specified area and get directions to them via your favorite maps application or browser on your Android device. The app is now only available on Android, but will soon be available on iTunes for your iOS device as well.

Start screenAt the home screen you can easily access the Directory, Maps, Search, Favorites, Applications and more.

SearchThis is the simple search option that will help you find any publicly listed daycare center within up to 20 miles from your specified chosen or current location.

Results Results are nice and cleanly listed for your choosing pleasure.

Map Maps view give you a better idea of how far your commute to and from the daycare centers will be.

Get Directions With the option to open a daycare centers address directly from your favorite map app or browser, you’ll have no trouble at all getting navigation instructions or driving directions to your favorite daycare center.

Apply Ur Daycare Locator makes it even easier by providing an easy to fill out application form that can be sent directly to your chosen daycare center. You don’t have to print and deliver your applications anymore.

Favorite List The favorites list makes it easy for you to save and access the daycare centers contact info when you need it.

Conclusion

After using this app for a few weeks running through the different features while looking for the perfect daycare center to enroll my son at, I’ve found that Ur Daycare Locator has saved me a ton of time and allowed me to discover daycare centers that I didn’t even know were in my area. It is an important decision to pick where our children spend their time and who will be watching them. Let Ur Daycare Locator help you find the perfect daycare for your kid(s). Give the app a try on Android from the Google PLAY Store here Ur Daycare Locator for Android or if you’re an iOS user you’ll have to wait a bit. It will be available on iTunes soon.

Source: Ur Daycare Locator

Is LockerDome St. Louis’ Groupon?

LockerDome is one hot startup coming out of St.Louis. It’s the first ever dedicated sports social network for youth and amateur sports. LockerDome has been likened to the Facebook or LinkedIn for athletes.

LockerDome allows individual sports organizations to develop their own sports networks, and most of the well known sports programs in the country have already joined and have thriving networks. The Dallas Texans, one of the top ranked soccer teams in the country has a LockerDome network, as does the East Coat Pro Showcase, a well known east coast event that’s made up of more than 100 of the 2011 Major League Baseball draft picks.

LockerDome and CEO Gabe Lozano aren’t just making a big name for themselves in the sports world, they’ve already chalked up a lot of funding. In December of 2011 they raised $750,000 in an angel round. Participants in the round include serial entrepreneurs Brian and Carol Matthews, co-founders of Primary Network and CDM Fantasy Sports; Capital Innovators, a St. Louis-based technology accelerator fund; Moosylvania Marketing, a nationally-recognized marketing agency; and Hal Gentry, co-founder of Capital Innovators and GridLogix, among more than a dozen other angel investors.

LockerDome also caught the eye of Square’s co-founder Jim McKelvey who invested and also took a seat on the company’s board of directors. But McKelvey wasn’t easily sold at first. He’s not the kind of investor that looks to pump money into a “flavor of the week” just to catch a big windfall he has three businesses that he’s started and still runs today, including Square which he founded with Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey.

More after the break

Interview: Austin Transplant Startup Sprockster Is A Great Place For Kids And Families

After getting my start in media at the age of 12 for Radio Aahs (the precursor to Radio Disney), naturally kid focused startups occasionally catch my eye, especially when their done well, and with a little TLC.

Sprockster is one of those great kid and family focused startup. Sprockster is a gateway to family friendly entertainment. They have a collection of over 1,000 kid friendly songs, hundreds of music videos and they’ve promoted over 600+ family friendly events. Sprockster is reminiscent of the newest version of MySpace (post Justin Timberlake) except guaranteed family friendly.

Co-founder Jesse Atwell tells nibletz.com:

“Sprockster is an online community dedicated to the discovery and promotion of new and emerging family entertainment. Initially focused on kids’ music and kids’ music videos, the site features 1000+ streaming songs, 500+ original music videos, and has promoted 600+ family-friendly events. Sprockster’s users include parents, educators, artists, brands, educators, video producers, etc. Our artist members have profiles that typically include streaming songs, videos, upcoming tour dates, pictures, current news, and more. Any user can create an account and contribute and engage with artists and other users. If you’re looking to explore, discover, and talk about new family-friendly entertainment, Sprockster is the place!”

There’s definitely a hole in aggregation services for family friendly entertainment.

“…If you visit iTunes and search “Kids Music” the first song you get is “Kids” by MGMT. I LOVE iTunes and “Kids” by MGMT is a great, GREAT song. One of my favorites. But it’s not very helpful if you’re looking to sample, explore, and discover the next Laurie Berkner or Dan Zanes. That’s not necessarily a perfect example, but ‘Family Music’ is a special case and definitely deserves its own neighborhood in the musical townscape . . . the main point being that not everything you find on traditional platforms is family-friendly and there’s a need to kind of clear the clutter. This is what inspired Sprockster and – ultimately – what we are trying to solve” Atwell said.

Atwells co-founder is his wife. She has a background in child development while he has an extensive background in entertainment marketing and digital production development. Before founding Sprockster Atwell held positions at Sony Music and Hallmark Cards. While there are already sites dedicated to the discovery of music like iTunes, MySpace, and Pandora, the Atwells couldn’t find a solution dedicated to just family entertainment.”

More after the break
Read More…