Last November, a group of four students⁠ — George Goldstein, Matthew Cantor, Cameron Jarvandi, and myself ⁠— attended VCU HealthHacks, a 24-hour hackathon in which participants compete with limited time to create solutions to real-world problems. While the event was exclusive to college students, through a Steward teacher with a VCU connection, the four of us were able to participate and ended up creating a 3D-printable pill dispenser. Despite being too young to participate (technically), our group actually won this event!

Several months later, our team presented our product at Steward’s Entrepreneurship Forum, an annual event where a handful of students display their entrepreneurial accomplishments in front of the school, as well as a panel of successful local businessmen and women. One of the panelists happened to be the CEO of a healthcare company, Averhealth, and he reached out to us after our presentation. He asked all four of us to work at Averhealth to continue developing our dispenser over the summer and turn it into an actual product.

During the summer we worked full time at Averhealth, developing our product in a professional setting where we were able to set our own hours and goals. Through the course of our work, we enhanced our skills in various areas, such as 3D-mapping, coding, and presenting. The high point of the job came when we were asked to present our product at the National Association of Drug Court Professionals Conference at the Gaylord Hotel in Maryland, at which we demonstrated our product in front of several hundred people including drug court professionals, law enforcement officers, and judges.

Overall, working at Averhealth was one of the most rewarding experiences of my life. The job gave me the opportunity to interact in the real business world, gaining valuable experience that is incredibly uncommon to have as a high school student. I was able to set my own hours and structure each day without constant supervision or someone telling me what to get done. This experience has strongly made me reconsider my career plans as I now am more interested in pursuing something business-related and entrepreneurial. In addition, the four of us have been asked to continue working at Averhealth part-time during the school year and hopefully will be launching the product soon.