The 31st annual Luther College Entrepreneurial Showcase was held Tuesday, April 26, in Dahl Centennial Union. Since 1986, the goal of the Entrepreneurial Showcase has been to provide an annual forum for students, faculty, alumni, and friends of Luther who are interested in and support entrepreneurship.

The event began with a networking session in which student entrepreneurs displayed their ideas and ventures. Dennis Birkestrand ’64, cofounder of Factory Direct Appliance, gave the keynote address.

The Daryl and Audrey Erdman Prizes for Entrepreneurship were awarded to Fabian Pop Pop ’17, Bjorn Myhre ’16, and Madilyn Heinke ’19. To be selected for an Erdman Prize, students who create, develop, and manage a successful enterprise during their years at Luther present their venture to a panel of judges made up of local entrepreneurs.

Fabian Pop Pop received the grand prize of $5,000 for his social enterprise and poultry business, Aweb’. Pop Pop, a Davis United World College (UWC) Scholar, attended the UWC in Norway before coming to Luther. He was born and raised in northern Guatemala, and the main purpose of Aweb’ is to aid women in rural Guatemala who are unemployed and living in poverty. The business provides employment for women who have never held jobs or received a salary, and it helps them support their families by providing a reliable source of income.

After determining through research that a business that employs women would be likely to help uplift the entire community, Pop Pop searched for a product that would be in high demand and easy and relatively quick to generate. He found that raising and selling chickens, with a production cycle of seven to nine weeks, would provide more than 140 percent return on initial investment in that region. It would also build on skills the women already had.

Pop Pop wrote a business plan in 2014 and in 2015 was invited to make a pitch for funding to the Resolution Project in Miami, Fla. He made it through several rounds of presentations and questioning from the judges to become one of 14 winners among 191 competing teams from all over the world. With $6,000 in seed money and a fellowship that hooked him up with two business mentors, he started Aweb’.

Late that summer, he got training about safe food handling and animal welfare, recruited and trained the 20 women who would work in the business, and organized workshops for women on topics such as resource management, entrepreneurship and self-empowerment, and current challenges for women from rural areas.

“People think that if you want to change people’s lives you have to come up with great ideas, but if you can use the skills people have already you can improve their lives,” Pop Pop says. Providing training in areas such as financial and resource management so the women can run the business themselves is better than giving gifts of food and school books, he says. Jobs allow them to buy their own necessities.

Aweb’ markets chicken to restaurants and small grocery stories, where there is large demand. “Most of them were also pleased to learn about our social commitment toward creating long-lasting opportunities for women in the region,” Pop Pop wrote in his Erdman application.

Pop Pop says more than 95 percent of profits go to the women who work for Aweb’. He plans to invest a portion of the prize money back into his business so he can continue to expand its reach.

Bjorn Myhre, who received a $2,500 prize, collaborated with Evan Sowder ’15 to create Sacred Media, a media production company that promotes environmental stewardship and aims to inspire people to visit national parks. Myhre specializes in multimedia productions that showcase outdoor adventure, and he has held a handful of internships that honed his media production skills.

Madilyn Heinke was the second recipient of a $2,500 prize. She started her business, M-N-M Sweets and Treats, by selling smoothies, hand-packed ice cream, and a variety of other treats with her sisters, McKendra and Mercede. Their mother bought them a trolley car to use as an ice cream stand, hoping they would earn money for college while also learning the value of hard work.