Entrepreneurs Seek to Make Their Mark

11/6/2024

Upper school students in this year’s Entrepreneurial Leadership course have their sights set on a radiant goal: the Diamond Challenge, the leading entrepreneurship competition for high school students.

The Diamond Challenge provides a platform for young people around the world to engage in solving pressing challenges while learning about entrepreneurship. Masters is one of only 18 Diamond Challenge Pitch Partners in the world. This year, the School will host the event on March 1, 2025.

“Participating in the Diamond Challenge is an integral part of the curriculum insofar as it gives students the opportunity to take what they are learning about leading an entrepreneurial venture into practice,” explained John Chiodo, director of innovation, engineering and computer science.

Inspired by their love of politics, Mason Dwek ’26 and Dylan Glaser ’25 created a mobile app called PolitiConnect. “Our goal is to bring fact-based political information without any rhetoric,” said Dwek. “With PolitiConnect there is no bias. You simply put in your address and get live notifications of what your state government and federal government officials are doing in addition to actually knowing who they are.”

The duo launched the app in June, and it is available on Google Play and in the App Store. They continue to hone their product; Dwek explained that “The hardest part is how to make the app more organized and have a cleaner look that can improve a user’s experience.”

Chiodo said, “Mason and Dylan have done a really great job developing a product for a consequential social problem and making it monetizable which isn’t always possible when addressing social issues.”

With an eye also on the greater good, Zach Gotthelf ’26 and his partner, Gus Creech ’26, are focusing their attention on the sports arena. They’re developing Elite Edge Cleats, an overshoe sports cleat primarily for athletes who might otherwise not be able to afford cleats.

“Zach has been working on this product idea for more than two years, and I think there is a market for what he hopes to produce,” Chiodo said. “The idea has gone through a number of different iterations, but that is part of the process when bringing a new product to market.”

Gotthelf has been working closely with car and footwear designer Brett Golliff on the prototype and has raised close to $10,000. He is also in talks with celebrity businessman and investor Mark Cuban. Creating this cleat has been a passion project for the young athlete for a while.

“I play baseball and we have a lot of kids from low income areas on the travel team I’ve played on so I’ve noticed that a lot of them either own the same pair of cleats for many years or they just don't own cleats at all," he said. "I realized that was an issue that needed to be solved so I started to brainstorm.”

The deadline for students to submit concept development ideas for the Diamond Challenge is January 16, 2025.