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NewBoCo Honored for the BIG Gift at the BIGGYs
Good evening! My name is George Elossais, and I’m a graduating second-year student at Iowa BIG. My peers and I work out of the Vault Coworking & Collaboration Space, tackling real initiatives with real community partners. My experience in Iowa BIG was taken to a completely new level when the Iowa Startup Accelerator and various startup teams from around the U.S., invited me to help create pitch decks that have been seen by 1000+ people and used to earn $100,000+ in pitch competitions, take aerial drone videos for multi-million dollar proposals, and educate the next generation workforce to code and build drones. I now work with NewBoCo daily, which is the new name of the company that powers the Iowa Startup Accelerator as well as other innovative educational initiatives such as Coder Dojo and Iowa Girls Code Camp and runs Vault Coworking where Iowa BIG calls home. Iowa BIG has benefitted from tens of thousands of dollars of “in-kind gifts” from NewBoCo in the form of discounted rent as well as much-needed workshop space. Please join me in applauding NewBoCo Executive Director Eric Engelmann and Director of Programs David Tominsky as tonight’s BIGGY Award winner in the category of “BIG Gift.”
Iowa BIG and The BIGGYs
Iowa BIG is an initiative-based high school experience created by the community-building effort of The Gazette Companies and The Cedar Rapids Community School District. Two educators took the community’s core design principles and created Iowa BIG. Iowa BIG held its second annual BIGGYS award ceremony on May 11, designed to recognize outstanding student outcomes and Partner participation. Nine students and nine partners were recognized.
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