Local student gets national business recognition

(LAKEWOOD RANCH, FL) - A Lakewood Ranch High School (LRHS) student made history this year as the first Mustang to ever be names a national quarterfinalist in the INCubatoredu Program.

Senior Nicolas Salerno earned the honor with his “Saturn” project.

INCubatoredu is a yearlong course at LRHS offering an authentic entrepreneurship experience as students develop their own product or service startup. Every year the students here work developing their own business, and the winning business is nominated to compete at the National level.

Salerno’s “Saturn” project is a payment ecosystem that lets people spend crypto at any merchant via tap-to-pay, settling instantly into fiat through a staker-funded pool.

LRHS vocational teacher and INCubator adviser Sharelise Rodriguez said Salerno’s recognition is a major honor.

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“This is a unique opportunity for INCubatoredu student teams to level up skills to compete for real funding from a panel of startup business investors at the national level,” she said. “The INCubatoredu National Pitch invites student teams to submit, or ‘pitch,’ their businesses and compete for funding at a national level.

“Each team competing in the National Pitch must have completed the INCubatoredu program and be nominated by their school. Nicolas developed Saturn and made it a quarter finalist, which is a recognition of its own. It is hard to make it to the top.”

Rodriguez said Salerno’s project was judged best in the school by the LRHS INCubatoer Board of Advisors, a group of educators and business expert volunteers.

Salerno’s project will be judged by a national panel looking for business thinking, customer understanding, and evidence of learning.

The National Pitch Awards are scheduled for July 8 in Chicago.