Cornell entrepreneur wins first prize at national contest

Marla Beyer, MBA/MHA ’20, hopscotched over more than 60 student teams from the U.S. and Ireland to win the $25,000 first prize at this year’s Blackstone LaunchPad’s Startup Grind Pitch Competition.

Beyer, cofounder and CEO of Hopscotch, was one of eight students selected to pitch in a live final round, held virtually at Startup Grind’s Global Conference, a global convening of tech leaders.

At Cornell, Beyer took Hopscotch through the eLab student business accelerator program, utilized Cornell's Blackstone LaunchPad mentoring program and participated in many other programs offered by Entrepreneurship at Cornell, the SC Johnson College of Business and the Sloan Program in Health Administration.

Hopscotch is a digital platform that enables pediatric behavioral health providers to provide optimal care to their clients, in and out of the office. Because of national provider shortages, up to 80% of children with diagnosed behavioral health conditions go untreated.

Through a suite of plug and play software tools that include customized gamified exercises and interventions, telehealth and family support, providers using Hopscotch can increase client and family engagement, streamline their workflows and broaden their access. Parents can also use the platform to coordinate and manage appointments, and children have access to a separate area to view follow up activities and resources.

Just a few weeks after launching, the company has more than 1,000 active clinicians on the platform and is in discussions with several children’s hospitals.

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Rebecca Valli