Alumni Accolades July 2013

Can one Coca-Cola Scholar’s startup become the consumer’s hub for online shopping? A group of investors led by Google Ventures believes that Nifti, founded by 2004 Coke Scholar Nathan Sharp (pictured above), has the potential to become just that. With $800,000 in seed funding, Nifti recently unveiled a new shopping service designed to help consumers save money by tracking discounts on the products they want to buy. Check out this article in GigaOM.

Congratulations to Kyle Saleeby (2013) who was awarded a $100,000 Proton OnSite Scholarship which he will use to attend MIT this fall.

Roberta Capp (1999), a Robert Wood Johnson clinical fellow at Yale University, wrote this article on the effects of Medicaid that was recently published in the Washington Post!

Amy Hu Sunderland (1999) was featured in the Salt Lake Tribune, sharing her amazing journey from buying her first house at age 10 to becoming an equities analyst!

Congratulations to Kacie Darden (2001) and cycling friend Danielle Grabol for breaking the two-women Race Across America record! They cycled from Oceanside, California to Annapolis, MD in 8 days, 2 hours and 35 minutes smashing the previous record by more than 13 hours!! Read more on their blog: Power, Pedals, and Ponytails

Xavier Billingsley (2009) was written up in the Columbia Daily Tribune for his dedication to keeping the University of Missouri a “smoke free campus” as former President of the Missouri Students Association!

Sydney Daniels (2011, University of Kentucky) is interning this summer at Raze Media, working alongside Tim McCallum (1991) after reading about the opportunity in one of our monthly newsletters!

Kavita Shukla (2002), CEO of Fenugreen and inventor of FreshPaper, was honored as an Echoing Green Fellow!  Coke Scholars will be able to see her speak at the 2013 Leadership Summit in October.

Congratulations to Corrie MacLaggan (1998), former Austin American-Statesman Capitol reporter and current Reuters national correspondent, who was just hired as a demographics reporter for the Texas Tribune!

Molly Lao (2009) won the Yat K. Tow Prize at Brown University’s commencement, which is awarded to a student who integrates significant academic work with community service!

Betsy Jones (2009) was chosen as a Whitaker International Program Fellow, providing her with full tuition and other benefits as she earns her Masters of Science in Biomedical Engineering at the University of Oxford, UK! The Whitaker program encourages emerging U.S. biomedical engineering leaders to see their career from an international perspective through a self-designed overseas project. While at Oxford, she will research Orthopaedic Biomechanics.  Here is an article that Betsy’s university published.

For their high school graduations, Cory Sprott and Austin Sandmeyer (2013 Scholars) were surprised with these Coca-Cola branded cakes!