Senior Giovanni Gorgatti is Gulliver Prep’s Silver Knight nominee in the area of Business. Gorgatti has taken business courses since freshman year. He’s entered a couple of business related competitions, winning one and coming in second in the other.
His business classes taught him how to evaluate stocks.
“Especially the biggest stocks in the market,” he says.
He learned how to determine which company’s stock would be more likely to go up or go down.
Gorgatti has traded stocks – but not using real money. And he learned how to develop a business plan.
“I created a company of my own,” he says. “Techbook. You put all your textbooks on one platform.”
The company would also create a system that would enable students to download the textbooks so the students could work off-line if they were in a place without Wi-Fi. Even though it was a great idea and quite useful, the business plans showed his idea would not work financially.
“We found it would be difficult to have all the companies on one site. You need different licenses,” he says.
However, he says the exercise in building a company and going through the business plan was a good experience.
Gorgatti also takes engineering. He put both of his interests together and created a company called Duo-Bottle.
“It’s a bottle that divides in half, so you can have two different liquids when you are working out or playing a sport,” he says. “We found it’s important to drink water when you are working out but it’s also important to regain the electrolytes you lost after you finish.”
With the Duo-Bottle concept, the second side could be filled with Gatorade or any energy drink.
When researching the concept, they discovered that there were already a couple of companies that touted that concept. However, those start-ups did not work out.
“We switched our idea,” he says. “Instead of a bottle, we decided to put two different liquids in a Camelback. That was our idea at the end of the year.”
That idea is on hold for the moment. In the meantime, he plans to go to college, study engineering so he can come up with the best design.
He’s been accepted to the University of Miami, the University of Colorado/Boulder and the University of Florida. He’s waiting for acceptances from Stanford, the University of California both the Santa Barbara and San Diego campuses, Cal Poly Institute and Rice.
To be a Silver Knight nominee, a candidate needs to show strong community service. Gorgatti spent several summers volunteering at Shake-A-Leg, the summer camp program that specializes in helping children with disabilities.
“We went hiking – sailing, fishing, swimming, kayaking,” he says.
For three to four weeks each summer, he worked with children aged 5-13.
“I was a counselor,” he says. “We each had groups. I was the group leader.”
He enjoyed working with the children and he loved the fact that he was able to volunteer in a situation that allowed him to be active.
“I learned that some kids are more difficult to deal with than other kids,” he says. “I learned how to deal with those kids. I learned how to be more responsible and take leadership.”
Gorgatti played soccer until his junior year, both for Gulliver and a travel team. He was captain of the junior varsity team his freshman and sophomore years.
For fun, Gorgatti free dives for lobsters off Key Biscayne. He dives 20-25 feet for the lobsters.
“I either grab them or use the nets,” he says.
Linda Rodriguez Bernfeld
