NJIT, youth group hosted entrepreneur-themed event for young innovators

High school students experienced a day of innovation enlightenment when the National Young Leaders Association and the New Jersey Institute of Technology hosted the first Entrepreneurathon, an innovation-empowering event.

Entrepreneurathon brought together students from Newark’s Link Community Charter School, Chatham High School, John P. Stevens High School (North Edison) and The Pingry School (Basking Ridge) to collaborate, generate ideas, and pitch original startup concepts before a panel of industry leaders.

The initiative aligns with NJIT’s commitment to local community impact, STEM education, and entrepreneurship. About 80 people attended the event on May 10 at NJIT’s student center.

The Entrepreneurathon featured hands-on workshops in business modeling, market validation, and social impact strategy, followed by live pitch sessions judged by executives and entrepreneurs. Team Travella won the competition for its all-in-one travel companion app, integrating features from Expedia, Yelp and Google Maps.

Participating students presented ventures ranging from AI-powered tutoring platforms to the next generation of security platforms, underscoring NYLA’s core mission: to democratize access to entrepreneurial education and connect young leaders through hands-on, high-impact programming.

“This event was not about launching startups,” said Samaya Shah, founder and executive director of NYLA and a student at Pingry. “It was about bringing together students from all backgrounds — public, private and charter — to collaborate, share ideas, and learn the fundamentals of starting a new business.”

Speakers included NJIT alumnus Nick DeNichilo, former president and CEO of Mott MacDonald North America; and Aliza Mujahid, CEO of DermaMech, a company that aims to better understand the science of human skin grafting and develop technology that will reduce infections, rejections, and scarring. She is also an NJIT Innovation Fellow. 

The National Young Leaders Association is a student-led nonprofit equipping middle and high school students with the tools, mentorship and experiences to become successful entrepreneurs. This was the first collaboration between the group and NJIT.