Two College of Visual and Performing Arts students—a fashion design major in the School of Design and a music industry major in the Setnor School of Music—recently won at the Blackstone LaunchPad 2024 Ideas Fest.
The students delivered a 90-second pitch on their entrepreneurial ideas to judges during the Ideas Fest, an annual student innovator competition. The award included $500 to help offset startup expenses.
Aphrodite Ruby Gioulekas ’25 combined her passion for rowing and fashion design to propose a line of high-tech, high-fashion rowing uniforms.
The current one-piece uniform is uncomfortable, according to Gioulekas. She seeks to create a uniform designed with the athlete in mind, starting with female collegiate rowers.
A member of the Syracuse University rowing team that won the 2024 Atlantic Coast Conference championship, Gioulekas wants rowers to celebrate their wins proudly in uniform rather than avoid cameras due to feeling unphotogenic. She hopes to breathe life into the uniform’s design.
“We want fun,” she says. “We want to create community through design.”
Gioulekas hopes to start a business that customizes training gear for teams or partner with Nike, the supplier of uniforms, to implement a new design.
Ania Kapllani ’25, founder and CEO of Sunset Music Management, a music management and artist development company, won for her pre-existing business pitch.
In 2022 Kapllani started off as a freelance manager for Saint Luke, an artist and student in the Setnor School of Music. She now also manages rock bands, a jazz fusion band, and more.
The company handles everything from content ideation to booking gigs, giving her the opportunity to work with many people and wear many hats.
She plans to use the award money for company branding, which includes logo designs and a website redesign, and expanding outreach to artists.
Kapllani inquired about the Ideas Fest last year, having heard about it at the Setnor School of Music’s convocation and during an entrepreneurship class at the Martin J. Whitman School of Management.
She encourages individuals to run with their business ideas, taking advantage of campus resources and their time in college.
“Give it a shot while you’re young and here,” she says. “If something doesn’t work out, at least you’ll know you tried it, and you learned something in the process.”