HURON – Kristi (Swisher) Gorinas is back home in Atlanta after having been selected as the runner-up in her industry at a global entrepreneurial competition in India. The Huron native has set a goal of marketing her unique product – Defendables Wearable Self-Defense – by next summer.
The two and a half day summit in late November attracted dozens of industry-specific breakout sessions featuring world-renowned chief executive officers and experts who were on hand to assist entrepreneurs and start-ups move through their journey, Gorinas said.
More than 300 investors from dozens of countries attended the networking sessions. She said they provided valuable advice for funding options for the entrepreneurial products.
Gorinas flew to India as a U.S. delegate chosen by the State Department.
Out of nearly 20,000 applicants, Gorinas was one of about 320 U.S. delegates invited to attend. About 150 State Department personnel joined Ivanka Trump at the summit.
“The Global Entrepreneur Summit in Hyderbad, India, was a much bigger international event than I had even imagined,” Gorinas said.
“This is the U.S. State Department’s biggest event of the year,” she said. “I was so shocked to have India’s Prime Minister (Narendra Damodardas Modi) in attendance with Ivanka.
“He is equivalent to our president and the security for those two was insane,” Gorinas said.
She said Modi and Trump gave opening remarks at the introductory session, welcoming 1,700 participants from 120 countries. They also attended the first night’s event at a local palace.
Gorinas said she was honored to be one of the 24 “pitch competition” finalists. She was the runner-up in her industry, Health and Life Sciences, finishing as one of the top eight.
She received a Dell laptop and $20,000 in Google Cloud and Firebase credits.
Her self-defense product, called Defendables, is a small plastic pod filled with the strongest form of pepper spray that can be worn discreetly.
In her presentation, she said her product can help women all over the world to protect themselves.
“My goal is to bring the product to people’s attention and hopefully have some collaboration with different governments so we can get it out to people in need,” Gorinas said.
She went to India hoping to visit with Trump about her product.
“However, she didn’t interact with individual attendees,” she said. “I am pleased with my runner-up status and grateful for the experience.”
Photo:Huron native Kristi (Swisher) Gorinas, third from left, is shown with other finalists in the product pitch competition at the Global Entrepreneur Summit in Hyderbad, India, in late November.
