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Black entrepreneurs develop mobile app that pays students for getting good grades

Kudzoo has 500,000 downloads

Two black entrepreneurs believe kids could use a little motivation to do well in school. So they started a Pennsylvania-based company that gives them just that. Trevor Wilkins came up with the concept for a student rewards program and garnered the help of Logan Cohen, who suggested using an app. The two developed Kudzoo, named after kudzu, the fastest-growing plant in the world.

The app is free to download and allows students to upload their report cards. The students are in turn rewarded with deals, giveaways, scholarship opportunities, concert tickets, and once-in-a- lifetime experiences based on their grades and achievements.

“We were able to raise a little bit of money and start building the platform,” Wilkins recently told Ebony magazine. “If we can be that extra sense of motivation, we feel that we can really make a difference.”

Wilkins said he and his siblings were rewarded by their parents for making good grades. According to blackbusiness.org, they received $10 for every A, $5 for every B and they were penalized if they brought home bad grades. “For example, if they got a C, they had to pay their parents $20,” the website reads.

Cohen and Wilkins want students to feel good about their education, growing up and taking their place in the world. Since the app was released last school year, it has grown to 500,00 active users.

Source: www.blackbusiness.org

Kelley Evans is a digital producer at Andscape. She is a food passionista, helicopter mom and an unapologetic Southerner who spends every night with the cast of The Young and the Restless by way of her couch.