News & Calendar
News

Ella Witalec '25 Wins Teen Accelerate Pitch Competition; Interviewed on Sound of Ideas

Congratulations to Ella Witalec '25, who won the Teen Accelerate pitch competition! This civic-focused contest has been around for adults for many years, but the teen competition is new this year.
Ella's pitch was to create a weekend-long hackathon for Middle School girls with no coding experience. "CodHers Cle" beat out 11 other teams and took home the grand prize of $1,000. Ella's pitch is based on her Capstone project at Laurel, which she also applied to the entrepreneurship program. Additionally, Ella's success in Speech and Debate (she recently became a National Qualifier!) certainly helped prepare her to deliver a winning pitch! Her win was included in this Cleveland.com story, and Ella was a guest on Sound of Ideas on February 28 where she talked about her initiative in more detail. Her interview begins at the 46:35 mark.
 
Ella also received a National Honorable Mention award for Aspirations in Computing this month through the National Center for Women & Information Technology (NCWIT). Only 360 National Award Honorable Mention recipients were selected, and Ella was among the top 11% of over 3,300 applicants.
Back
© 2024 Laurel School. All Rights Reserved.