A team of students from Alfred University claimed the first-place prize in the sixth annual AHA! Allegany County Startup Collegiate Competition, held Saturday, April 11, on the Houghton University campus.
Teams from Alfred University, Houghton University, and Alfred State College pitched their ideas for creating a new business to a panel of judges. Winning teams were awarded cash prizes, which can be used to put their business plans into action.
The mission of the AHA! Competition is to cultivate the entrepreneurial spirit of college students while addressing local challenges and fostering small business development. Teams are encouraged to be cross-disciplinary, bringing together diverse perspectives to identify real problems and build viable solutions. The goal is to inspire the next generation of professionals to build their futures in Allegany County and the surrounding region.
The Alfred University team of Amina Shamshibayeva, sophomore finance major, Vladyslava Makarenko, first-year finance major (business analytics and economics minors) and Mike Maeda, sophomore data analytics major, and their company, ReGrow, won the competition and the $5,000 grand prize. Jason Morrison, Alfred University assistant professor of finance, was the team’s faculty mentor, while Seann Bishop, fractional expert and advisor, served as industry mentor.
ReGrow is working to produce sustainable, biodegradable packaging using mycelium and local organic waste. The process combines agricultural hay substrate with mycelium, which grows over five days in a controlled environment before being dried and finished to create an eco-friendly alternative to traditional packaging materials.
Other teams from Alfred University included: UniConnect, Vinci Armas and Mariam Swedan; Schedule Beacon, Christopher Coyle and Robby Hicks; GoalTrack, William Mahunda and Holly Beda Lyimo; and CoachMe, Mark Ungurian, Matthew Bittel, and Ryan Haggerty.
Judges for this year's competition were: Ashley Smith, director of Economic Development for Allegany County; Sophia Marshall, senior program manager at the University at Buffalo; and Filomena Jack, artist and program director at IncubatorWorks.
For the AHA! Competition, teams of undergraduate students work to identify a business need in the area and how they would solve a problem for their customers and turn that into a viable business. Students were given guidance by knowledgeable industry and academic mentors.
The mission of the competition is to:
- Bring together students from the three Allegany County colleges to work together to move the local economy forward.
- Cultivate the entrepreneurial spirit in the student population.
- Retain the talent of young professionals in Allegany County.
- Help the growth of area small businesses.
- Provide real-world experiential learning opportunities for students.
Youtube video 2026 AHA! Competition
The competition is made possible through partnerships and sponsors including: Alfred University, Alfred State College, Houghton University, IncubatorWorks, Allegany County, the ACCORD Corp., the Western New York Incubator Network, Western NY Wilds, The Center for Advanced Ceramic Technology (CACT) at Alfred University, Sealing Devices Inc., and Hoselton Foundation.
IncubatorWorks provides programming and services for ceramics and glass science startups as well as Main Street businesses. The organization plays a vital part in fostering growth of entrepreneurial enterprises and small businesses in the surrounding areas with a focus on Allegany, Chemung, Steuben, and Schuyler counties.
“We are thrilled to have had a record-breaking 13 pitches this year from students across Alfred University, Houghton University, and Alfred State College — the most in the competition's history! The students brought incredibly innovative and thorough pitches, and it was a wonderful day hosted at Houghton University,” said Ashleigh Madison, Executive Director, IncubatorWorks.
“At IncubatorWorks, we believe that cultivating an entrepreneurial mindset in students is key to driving economic development in our region, and events like this are a testament to that mission. We are excited to see these students take their ideas forward and potentially launch businesses of their own. We especially applaud our winners for their environmentally conscious business concept. IncubatorWorks can’t wait to see what next year's students come up with!”
