Living a healthy and balanced life can be difficult for college students at Arizona State<br/>University due to the barrier of high cost of healthy food. To understand more about this problem<br/>we conducted research on the Tempe campus through surveys and virtual focus groups. We<br/>discovered that the cost of healthy food is one of the main barriers preventing students from<br/>eating healthy. We also learned that the students would be more willing to eat healthier if they<br/>could access healthy foods at a more reasonable price. Our solution to this problem was Eunoia,<br/>a service that allows students to receive discounts on healthy food and incentivize them to eat<br/>healthier in the future. Our company creates an innovative relationship between our customers,<br/>their private health insurance companies and local grocery stores throughout the Phoenix Metro<br/>area. Students at Arizona State University will be able to purchase healthy food items discounted<br/>by up to 30%. These discounts will be funded by their health insurance companies as well as the<br/>local grocery stores they purchase from. Our business model allows our customers to live<br/>healthier lives while also providing value to partnered health insurance companies and grocery<br/>stores. Once we established our business model, we spoke with students at Arizona State<br/>University and representatives from health insurance companies. Through these demographics,<br/>we received positive feedback and early traction with our idea. Our goal is to be able to<br/>implement our product in the Arizona State University community and then expand this product<br/>into a more general market to help all people live a pure and balanced life.

This thesis will bring together students to engage in entrepreneurship by finding, measuring and sharing strategic market opportunities. From a student’s perspective, it will take a deep dive into the world of startup ecosystems, markets and trends utilizing both qualitative and quantitative market research techniques. The information gathered has been curated into a productive, meaningful manner, through a report titled “The State of Startups: A Student Perspective.” <br/> The first key theme of this thesis is that market intelligence can be a powerful tool. The second key theme is the power of knowledge implementation towards competitive strategies. The first section of the thesis will focus on identifying and understanding the current “startup” landscape as a basis on which to build strategic and impactful business decisions. This will be accomplished as the team conducts a landscape analysis focused on the student perspective of the student-based North American “entrepreneurial” ecosystem. The second section of the thesis will focus specifically on the personal experiences of student startup founders. This will be accomplished through the analysis of interviews with founders of the startups researched from the first section of the thesis. This will provide us with a direct insight into the student perspective of the student-based North American “entrepreneurial” ecosystem.

As social media and technology continue to impact the way students communicate and receive information, it is encouraged that university student-run organizations utilize social media platforms as a tool to further the development of their organizations. Social media platforms allow student organizations to network, promote awareness of their organizations, current campus events, and provide the opportunity to develop strong associations and interactions among students. Overall, student-run organizations currently utilize a wide variety of social media; however, frequently it is used without a clear understanding of its role and best practices, which could lead to a loss of effectiveness in their communication with students. Therefore, these factors suggest the need for university student-run organizations to recognize and understand the opportunities that effective social media strategies can bring as a communication tool to enhance student engagement.

Obesity rates among adults have steadily grown in recent decades all the way up to 42.4% in 2018. This is a 12% increase from the turn of the century (Center for Disease Control and Prevention, 2021). A major reason for this rise is increased consumption of processed, high-calorie foods. People eat these foods at a young age and develop bad eating habits that can last for the rest of their lives. It is essential to intervene early and help adolescents form balanced, healthy eating habits before bad habits are already formed. Our solution to this problem is Green Gamers. Green Gamers combines adolescent’s passion for gaming with healthy eating via in-game rewards for healthy eating. People will be able to purchase healthy food items, such as a bag of carrots, and on the packaging there will be a QR code. They will then be able to scan the code on our website, and earn points which will unlock in-game items and other rewards. Video game rewards act as effective motivators for you people to eat more healthy foods. After the solution was formulated, a preliminary survey was conducted to confirm that video game related rewards would inspire children to eat more healthy foods. Based on those results, we are currently in the process of running a secondary market research campaign to learn if gift card rewards are a stronger motivator. Our end goal for Green Gamers would be to partner with large gaming studios and food producers. This would allow us access to many gaming franchises, so that rewards are available from a wide variety of games: making the platform appealing to a diverse audience of gamers. Similarly, a relationship with large food producers would give us the ability to place QR codes on a greater assortment of healthy food items. Although no relationships with large companies have been forged yet, we plan to utilize funding to test our concept on small focus groups in schools.

Living a healthy and balanced life can be difficult for college students at Arizona State University due to the barrier of high cost of healthy food. To understand more about this problem we conducted research on the Tempe campus through surveys and virtual focus groups. We discovered that the cost of healthy food is one of the main barriers preventing students from eating healthy. We also learned that the students would be more willing to eat healthier if they could access healthy foods at a more reasonable price. Our solution to this problem was Eunoia, a service that allows students to receive discounts on healthy food and incentivize them to eat healthier in the future. Our company creates an innovative relationship between our customers, their private health insurance companies and local grocery stores throughout the Phoenix Metro area. Students at Arizona State University will be able to purchase healthy food items discounted by up to 30%. These discounts will be funded by their health insurance companies as well as the local grocery stores they purchase from. Our business model allows our customers to live healthier lives while also providing value to partnered health insurance companies and grocery stores. Once we established our business model, we spoke with students at Arizona State University and representatives from health insurance companies. Through these demographics, we received positive feedback and early traction with our idea. Our goal is to be able to implement our product in the Arizona State University community and then expand this product into a more general market to help all people live a pure and balanced life.