Translation system for builders wins entrepreneurship competition
During a summer internship with a Boston-based construction company, Luke Curtin ’25 of Wellesley, Massachusetts, noticed significant communication barriers between English-speaking and Spanish-speaking contractors and subcontractors. The problem, he noted, could negatively impact safety, productivity, and the company’s bottom line.
With the help of fellow management and business majors Jimmy Gibbons ’25 of Winchester, Massachusetts; Owen Quinn ’25 of Jupiter, Florida; and Max Heberlein '25 of Marshfield, Massachusetts; TranslaSite was born. The concept: a real-time, English-to-Spanish translation system for construction sites consisting of a mobile app and compact wearable device that can be clipped onto workers’ vests.
The team actively leveraged Skidmore College’s Kenneth A. Freirich Entrepreneurship Competition to develop and improve their business plan and technology.
The competition begins early in the fall semester with a call for entries and a midsemester ideation and mentoring event called StartUp Skidmore. At preliminary presentations late in the semester, alumni entrepreneurs, business executives, and investors select the most promising teams to enter the final round of the competition. Competitors continue to refine their plans and products with the support of alumni mentors into the spring semester.
The competition is open to students from all majors.
Christopher Campos '26 shows Stella Smart ’16 and other alumni judges product samples from Duende, an Afro-Caribbean inspired fashion business.
And this year’s winner is …
This year’s 15th annual competition finals, held on Feb. 21, featured nine student teams, whose product ideas ranged from athletic gear and chocolate to travel and LGBTQ+ awareness.
After all the presentations were in and the hard questions answered, a four-judge panel of Skidmore alumni (Molly Haley ’64, Themba Shongwe ’18, Stella Smart ’16, and Rich Wartel ’91) awarded TranslaSite the first-place prize of $20,000.
According to the judges, the TranslaSite team identified a real and pressing workplace challenge and came up with a solution that will positively impact the construction field and perhaps other industries where effective and accurate communication is essential. The team also had a mock-up of the device to show the judges.
While generous prizes will undoubtedly support students’ entrepreneurial ventures, many participants noted the biggest impact of the competition was the opportunity to network with and learn from experienced Skidmore alumni entrepreneurs.
“The competition transformed our knowledge into hands-on execution and challenged us to address real-world problems,” Curtin said.
Our team gained a true appreciation for the relentless effort required to be an entrepreneur. The long nights spent perfecting the pitch deck, reworking financials, and anticipating investor questions made us truly appreciate the entrepreneurial grind.”
Ray Bryan ’94, private advisor and senior vice president for the Rockefeller Global Family Office, served as the team’s alumni mentor.
Second place
Kubair Bahl ’25, left, and Taha Bhatti ’25 explain Summit, an app that optimizes their rewards and incentives for credit cards.
Kubair Bahl ’25 of Marlboro, New Jersey, and Taha Bhatti ’25 of Lahore, Pakistan, earned the second-place prize of $10,000 for their brainstorm, Summit, an app that aggregates a person’s credit cards and uses AI to optimize their rewards/incentives and credit score. Summit already has nearly 500 early adopters and plenty of web traffic on its site.
“We are solving a real pain point,” says Bahl. “Most consumers struggle to maximize credit card rewards. While they believe they are earning efficiently, billions of dollars in potential rewards remain unclaimed due to suboptimal usage … We are scrappy entrepreneurs who want to put money in their pockets.”
Dylan Telano ’23, who won the first-place prize in 2021 for VoyceMe (a web-comics platform), was their alumni mentor.
Third place
The third-place prize of $5,000 went to the team of Liala Cryer '26 of Ithaca, New York; Molly Smith '27 of St. Albans, Vermont; Sara Burr '25 of Alexandria, Virginia; and Justin Shafritz ’25 of Burlington, Vermont. Through Polar Hockey, they aim to deliver on Cryer’s long-standing desire to produce high quality, anatomically tailored hockey equipment designed specifically for women.
“We were surprised by how widespread the issue is — many female hockey players share our frustrations about the lack of properly fitting equipment” said Burr. “We’ve also been surprised by how open and supportive the hockey community has been. Industry experts, players, and mentors have been eager to offer insights and help us bring Polar to life.”
Natasha Fahey ’07, vice president of operations at Boston-based Impact Reality, was their alumni mentor.
Sara Burr '25 (right) and teammates show Polar Hockey’s prototype shoulder pads to judges at the Freirich Entrepreneurship Competition.
An Entrepreneurial Campus
“When I’m on the road talking about what makes Skidmore unique and distinctive, the Freirich Competition is front and center,” said President Marc Conner at the awards dinner in the Billie Tisch Center for Integrated Sciences. “This program has been truly foundational.”
In 2020, a decade after he launched the “Shark Tank”-like competition, Ken Freirich ’91 decided to endow the competition and assure, in the words of Teaching Professor of Management and Business Cathy Hill, that “the program would become part of the fabric of an education at Skidmore.”
Since then, the College has added StartUp Skidmore, which fits hand-in-glove with the competition, according to Hill.
“This is the first year that the competition has had so many prototypes, which we stress at StartUp Skidmore and through mentoring," Hill said.
Multiple teams developed their products in the Schupf Family IdeaLab, the campus makerspace and innovation center that hosted Startup Skidmore.
TranslaSite created a mock-up of their clip-on translator in the creative space. Other teams – Polar, the travel planning website TripGoat, and the fashion line Duende – even demonstrated prototypes (also known as minimum viable products) at the competition.
Building on a growing entrepreneurial campus culture, Skidmore recently launched a , with two separate tracks in arts administration and management and business. In its first year, more than 20 students declared a minor in entrepreneurship, Hill said.
