INDIANAPOLIS — The City of Indianapolis is back on the global stage, this time as a hub for entrepreneurs from around the world.
The Global Entrepreneurship Congress is offering a platform for local college students to pitch their inventions and ideas to a global audience. Indiana University brought some of its brightest students to the GEC, with each project aiming to address a specific problem.
Among them is Anna Dorris, the founder and CEO of Everewear, a company dedicated to making thrift shopping more efficient.
"In order to make this mainstream, we really have to make it easier, less time-consuming, less exhausting, and overwhelming, in order to really take market share away from fast fashion," Dorris said.
Everewear’s website allows users to input their sizes and clothing preferences, pulling up pieces from Goodwill that can be purchased immediately.
"The pros know that you never really have to buy anything new again, and we are just trying to help more people become pros," Dorris added.
Dorris' invention is not alone in its quest to tackle pressing issues.
Two other local entrepreneurs, Alex Kaluzna and his partner Benjamin Landolian have developed a mouth guard called Capshock, designed to identify if an athlete has experienced a hit strong enough to potentially cause a concussion. The mouthguard lights up red if such a hit occurs.
"In the U.S. alone, every year, 3.8 million concussions occur in impact sports, and it's estimated that 50% of them go completely undetected, so we are solving a bigger problem,” Kaluzna said.
This commitment to solving big problems is at the heart of entrepreneurship, according to Jonathan Ortmans, chair of the Global Entrepreneurship Congress. He emphasized the significance of hosting the conference in Indiana.
"If we had gone to Silicon Valley or New York, it's like you know, that's relevant to very few parts of the world. What’s happening here in Indiana is a story where Hoosiers can share with people in similar-sized economies and similar types of economies," Ortmans explained.
The GEC comes at a time when home-grown entrepreneurs are expected to contribute to economic growth in Indiana. This year marks the first time the conference has been hosted in the United States since 2009, when it was last held in Kansas City.
