PanGEA has announced the winners of its Global Innovation Challenge, which kicked off earlier this month as part of Global Entrepreneurship Week. The Pan Global Challenge was a call to help bridge cultural and communication barriers faced by international students, with a focus on the theme “Language” and ideas for products, services or technologies that could foster collaboration.
Winners were:
- First place: Junhui Yang, Haohui Pan
- Second place: Dong Whee Lim, Yunkyu Lee
- Third place: Merve Gencturk, Miwa Mashiko, Wendy Wang
With a growing number of international students, Syracuse University now hosts about 4,000 students from more than 130 countries — which is more than 20 percent of the total student body. As the number of international student increases, cultural and language barriers between domestic and international students can lead to stereotypes.
PanGEA, the Pan Global Entrepreneurs Association, was created by Dong Hyeok Lee ’20, and Lawrence Lin ’18. Lin, a Maxwell alum from Beijing, was a founding member of the Blackstone LaunchPad at Syracuse University, and the first Blackstone LaunchPad Global Fellow. Lee, a VPA Industrial and Interaction Design student originally from Korea, is an entrepreneur working out of the LaunchPad, and a current Blackstone LaunchPad Global Fellow. PanGEA is an entrepreneurship group that is global in scale. Its mission is to educate and support students in becoming global leaders, as well as global entrepreneurs. Members learn how to work and communicate with people from different backgrounds, creating more cultural awareness.
The PanGEA Global Innovation Challenge was sponsored by the Blackstone LaunchPad powered by Techstars at Syracuse University.
Photos, left to right, Dong Hyeok Lee, Yunkyu Lee, Wendy Wang, Merve Gencturk, Miwa Mashiko, Junhui Yang, Haohui Pan