CEL Capstone Showcase People's Award Winner Revealed

Thanks to the 832 SCH community members who voted for the CEL Capstone Showcase People's Choice Award! And the award goes to PACE by Zarin DeVeaux ‘25 and Layla Shands '25! The team won the 33-hour online voting competition for its studying and organizing app for high school students. Along with winning the People's Choice Award, Zarin and Layla also received the "App Studio Award," presented by their CEL faculty mentor, Dr. Vince Day, who said, "Zarin crafted an elegant U/X design while Layla learned how to implement a variety of advanced coding techniques toward the creation of a time management app to help students learn how to balance academics, extracurricular activities, personal time and more." Well done, PACE! Watch their pitch here.

This year's Virtual Capstone Showcase ran slightly differently than previous years: Typically, all 30-plus projects would be up for voting, but this year it was limited to the selected 15 projects that won a CEL Studio or Mindset Award. These winners were hand-selected by their CEL faculty advisors for their dedication, academic prowess, and entrepreneurial mindset. 

The Sand's Mindset Award is presented to the project that embodies all four entrepreneurial pillars—resiliency, opportunity seeking, resourcefulness, and creativity. This year's winners were Hope Kelly '25 and Lida Goloveyko '25 for Power Through It. Their company builds tiny houses for the homeless and recently partnered with Sanctuary Village, a homeless housing company in Philadelphia, to create a model. Their faculty advisors, Juliet Fajardo and Daria Maidenbaum, said, “Lida and Hope wanted to design tiny homes at a low cost and efficient solution to homelessness. Throughout the semester, Lida and Hope embodied all the traits of the entrepreneurial mindset—opportunity-seeking, creative problem-solving, resilience, and resourcefulness. […] Their passion and dedication were evident throughout, and the digital model and architectural scale model they produced for Sanctuary Village will be used for fundraising as well as designing and articulating the interior furnishings which is currently in progress.” Watch their pitch here. 

Read about all our recent Capstone winners, from the Resiliency Prize to the MacGyver Award. These 15 sophomore-created projects went above and beyond this past semester, and each should be recognized for their hard work and dedication. Congratulations to all our students!

Top photo, from left: Layla Shands '25 and Zarin DeVeaux ‘25, PACE

Secondary photo, from left: Daria Maidenbaum, Hope Kelly '25, Lida Goloveyko '25, and Juliet Fajardo, Power Through It