Student Showcase

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Tunjarnika Coleman-Ferrell

Alumni Showcase

Palm Beach State College’s new Palm Beach Gardens – Provost enrolled at the school 30 years ago

When Palm Beach State College President Ava Parker tapped Tunjarnika Coleman-Ferrell to lead the school’s northernmost campus, it was as if she said “welcome home.”The Riviera Beach native first stepped foot on campus 30 years ago when she enrolled in summer classes at the Palm Beach Gardens college to get a head start on her university coursework. Parker appointed Coleman-Ferrell to her new post upon the retirement of interim provost Scott MacLachlan in October.

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Danielle Newport and Emma Meadows

Student Showcase

Palm Beach Atlantic University Students

Students from the School of Communication and Media won five awards – including the top two prizes for scriptwriting — in the Broadcast Education Association’s Festival of Media Arts. Sophomore Danielle Newport and junior Emma Meadows claimed first and second place, respectively, for their scripts. They competed against students from Biola University, the University of Central Florida, University of Georgia and East Tennessee State University.

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Daniel Cane

Alumni Showcase

CEO & Co-founder of Modernizing Medicine – Graduate of Lake Worth High School

Entrepreneur Daniel Cane is CEO and co-founder of Modernizing Medicine, a specialty-specific information technology leader that now boasts nearly 11,000 specialty physicians, ambulatory surgery center and hospitals as clients. Since founding the company in 2010, Daniel has led his team to raise over $85 million in funding and to employ over 500 employees. Daniel’s first success story was co-founding Blackboard Inc., where he raised over $100 million in venture capital and in 2004 helped take the company public on the NASDAQ (BBBB). In 2011, Blackboard was sold for $1.6 billion. Based on his history of building and scaling start-ups, Daniel has earned numerous accolades, including EY Entrepreneur of the Year®, Technology Entrepreneur of the Year by the Greater Miami Chamber of Commerce and Excalibur Awards Palm Beach Small Business Leader of the Year by the Sun Sentinel. He was also honored by Florida Governor Rick Scott with the Business Ambassador Award and named to the inaugural ‘South Florida Ultimate CEO’ list by the South Florida Business Journal.

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Rachel Zietz

Student Showcase

Pine Crest School – Young Entrepreneurs Academy Program

Gladiator Lacrosse® was founded in 2012 by 13 year old entrepreneur and lacrosse player, Rachel Zietz. The idea for Gladiator Lacrosse came from Rachel’s disappointment with the quality, cost and lack of selection of current product offerings. Like every player wishing to improve his or her game, Rachel’s coaches advised her to play “wall ball” and practice her shot as much as possible. However, the quality of the products she purchased for use in the backyard would not hold up to the weather outdoors, or were too expensive. Participating in the Young Entrepreneurs Academy Program (co-sponsored by Florida Atlantic University and Boca Raton Chamber of Commerce) gave Rachel the idea to start a business which would provide high-quality lacrosse equipment at an affordable price; thus Gladiator Lacrosse was born.

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Pierre Garçon

Student Showcase

Wide Receiver for the San Francisco 49ers – Graduate of John I. Leonard High School

Pierre Garçon, who plays wide receiver for the San Francisco 49ers, graduated from John I. Leonard High School and was also a player on the school’s team. Four seniors at an honor roll assembly at John I. Leonard High School Thursday were surprised to learn that they had been chosen to receive $2,500 scholarships from the Pierre Garçon Foundation. The winners of the scholarships are Jada Allen, Jarnell Johnson, Christina Van Dyme, and Mohammed Al-Amary. This is the second year that Garçon has awarded scholarships to John I. Leonard seniors. He has also provided Thanksgiving meals to needy families at the school and provided bikes to children during a holiday bicycle giveaway held at the school.

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Jacob Zipper, Winston Cheung, Devin Willis and Carson Lyttle

Student Showcase

Palm Beach County High School Students

A group of high school students from Florida Atlantic University’s TechGarage program at FAU Tech Runway took first place in one of the eMerge Americas Hackathon, a 24-hour computer programming competition. The team competed against 34 other teams, all representing technology companies from South Florida. The TechGarage team, which included Winston Cheung from Atlantic High School; Carson Lyttle from Boca Raton High School; Devin Willis from FAU High School and Jacob Zipper from Pine Crest School, was the only student team to participate in the event. The FAU TechGarage group’s winning technology was SmileMetrics, a system that allows businesses to measure overall customer satisfaction in the hospitality industry in real-time.

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Bill Bone

Alumni Showcase

Founding Partner of Larmoyeux & Bone – Graduate of Atlantic High School

Bill Bone dedicates his law practice and much of his spare time to helping people in need and striving to “give something back” to his community. His work on behalf of injured clients earned him a well-deserved reputation as a tough negotiator and litigator; Bill has successfully represented hundreds of clients with serious personal injuries or loss of family members due to accident and negligence by others.

Bill Bone is a dedicated community leader who serves as Chairman, Do the Write Thing Challenge for the National Campaign to Stop Violence; Executive Committee member of the Kravis Center for the Performing Arts; Trustee of the Legal Aid Society of PBC; Vice President, CycleFest, Inc.; and Founding President and Trustee of Florida Stage. Bill is recognized as an exemplary volunteer leader of numerous causes including The March of Dimes; American Heart Association; Palm Beach Police Foundation, The South Florida Science Museum, and many more. Bill is an alumnus of Atlantic High School, lives in Palm Beach, and enjoys his role as father of four children.

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Pahokee Middle School Students

Student Showcase

Middle School Robotics Team Earns NASA’s Attention

A team of 11,12 and 13-year-old students from Pahokee Middle School have garnered the attention of top physicists and NASA. As part of the research required for their Lego Robotics competitions, the Pahokee Middle School Robotics Team who call themselves the Subaroosbegan looking into ways to manage kidney stones in astronauts, an issue faced in zero gravity. They were quickly contacted by physicists at the University of Washington who were conducting similar research. However, the Subaroo’s work was light years ahead of their much older and highly educated counterparts across the country. The UW researchers told the students that the work they have conducted took the UW researchers 10 years to discover. Now that exploration could help astronauts working on the International Space Station. The Pahokee team was able to conduct their research and spark their imagination on the robotics stage thanks to a grant from the Education Foundation that set them on a path for the future.