Though about 75 percent of American waste is recyclable, only 30 percent of it is actually recycled and less than ten percent of plastics disposed of in the United States in 2015 were recycled. A statistic like this demonstrates the immense need to increase recycling rates in order to move towards cultivating a circular economy and benefiting the environment. With Arizona State University’s (ASU) extensive population of on-campus students and faculty, our team was determined to create a solution that would increase recycling rates. After conducting initial market research, our team incentives or education. We conducted market research through student surveys to determine the level of knowledge of our target audience and barriers to entry for local recycling and composting resources. Further, we gained insight into the medium of recycling and sustainability programs they would be interested in participating in. Overall, the results of our surveys demonstrated that a majority of students were interested in participating in these programs, if they were not already involved, and most students on-campus already had access to these resources. Despite having access to these sustainable practices, we identified a knowledge gap between students and their information on how to properly execute sustainable practices such as composting and recycling. In order to address this audience, our team created Circulearning, an educational program that aims to bridge the gap of knowledge and address immediate concerns regarding circular economy topics. By engaging audiences through our quick, accessible educational modules and teaching them about circular practices, we aim to inspire everyone to implement these practices into their own lives. Though our team began the initiative with a focus on implementing these practices solely to ASU campus, we decided to expand our target audience to implement educational programs at all levels after discovering the interest and need for this resource in our community. Our team is extremely excited that our Circulearning educational modules have been shared with a broad audience including students at Mesa Skyline High School, ASU students, and additional connections outside of ASU. With Circulearning, we will educate and inspire people of all ages to live more sustainably and better the environment in which we live.

The market for searching for food online is exploding. According to one expert at Google, “there are over 1 billion restaurant searches on Google every month” (Kelso, 2020). To capture this market and ride the general digital trend of internet personalization (as evidenced by Google search results, ads, YouTube and social media algorithms, etc), we created Munch to be an algorithm meant to help people find food they’ll love. <br/>Munch offers the ability to search for food by restaurant or even as specific as a menu item (ex: search for the best Pad Thai). The best part? It is customized to your preferences based on a quiz you take when you open the app and from that point continuously learns from your behavior.<br/>This thesis documents the journey of the team who founded Munch, what progress we made and the reasoning behind our decisions, where this idea fits in a competitive marketplace, how much it could be worth, branding, and our recommendations for a successful app in the future.

The Founders lab is a year-long program that gives its students an opportunity to participate in a unique team-based, experiential Barrett honors thesis project to design and apply marketing and sales strategies, as well as business and financial models to start up and launch a new business. This honors thesis project focuses on increasing the rate of vaccination outcomes in a country where people are increasingly busy (less time) and unwilling to get a needle through a new business venture that provides a service that brings vaccinations straight to businesses, making them available for their employees. Through our work with the Founders Lab, our team was able to create this pitch deck.

The academic environment has historically been somewhat slow to implement and adopt new technologies. However, developments in video games have created an opportunity for students to learn new skills and topics through nontraditional mediums of education. The disruption caused by the COVID-19 pandemic further highlighted the need for flexible learning opportunities. Joystick Education is our approach to addressing this need. Through online, game-based tutoring and a database of video games with high educational value, Joystick Education creates a learning environment that is effective, fun, and engaging for students. We analyzed popular, mainstream video games for educational content and selected nine games that teach concepts like history, biology, or physics while playing the game. Through promotion on social media, we generated buzz around our website which led to 103 unique visitors over our first month online and two customers requesting to book our tutoring service. We are confident that given more time to grow, Joystick Education can generate profit and become a successful business.