Innovation Event Highlights — Maker Market + Sparkathon!

Maker Market — 11.8.25

Photos by Daniel Liu (HMC’29).

We’re in our second year of hosting Maker Market: an afternoon full of Claremont student and community vendors selling their arts, crafts, and creative skills. This year, the event aligned with both the Pomona and Pitzer Parent & Family Weekend, drawing Maker Market’s biggest turnout yet!

At the Hive, students are encouraged to create, learn new skills, and hone a craft. The Maker Market provides a space for students to gain experience in scaling their talent, marketing, and selling the fruits of their labor to their peers and the public. For many, this is a first step in gaining entrepreneurial experience in the creative field. Plus, community members get to start their Christmas shopping early and support student artists while doing so!

The offerings ranged widely, from illustrations, hand-made and upcycled clothing, prints, henna tattoos, leather goods, knit and crochet crafts, jewelry, games, posters, sculpture, and pottery. It’s wonderful to see the space buzzing about with new and familiar faces, teeming with creativity and connection between artists and makers alike. 

I spoke with Osiel Ocampo, a senior art major at Pomona College and a veteran Hive student staffer who helped facilitate the event, about their perspective on the day’s activities.

Osiel shared that the room’s energy was electric! “There were a lot of people here. You definitely had to zigzag to get anywhere,” they laughed. Drinks ran out within the first hour and a half, student vendors sold out, and the Hive’s outdoor tables filled with students, parents, and community members who lingered to talk with the students about their art and make their own creations. “It was cool seeing that the Hive was open for Maker Market, but also that people were using it for whatever they wanted. That’s precisely the Hive, you make it what you need it to be.”

The turnout of artists and visitors this year was diverse, from student creators to parents visiting for the first time to Claremont locals heading over from the Pilgrim Place Festival. Our Hive staff, Reese, Trevor, and Aja, were tabling and facilitating, making sure everyone had what they needed and knew where to go. “It gives [creative] people a reason to come together and take up space,” they explained. They see Maker Market as a powerful introduction to what the Hive is: a creative hub, a community gathering place, and a resource for anyone in the consortium. “For families visiting, it was a great introduction to the Hive. Hopefully, it encourages students to keep coming back, to take a further stake and say, ‘Yes, I’m a user of this space. I want to show it off.’”

Sparkathon — 11.15.25

Photos by Olivia Ma and Alex Chen.

The winning team: Rebecca Y. , Indra Ramirez Antoni, Jack Chin & Emily Zhu 

Sparkathon is an innovative, impact-driven design-thinking competition that challenges student teams to solve some of the most pressing societal problems. As the largest case competition of The Claremont Colleges, Sparkathon supports winning teams with generous funding, mentorship, and prototyping labs to implement their solutions in target communities. 

In line with Sparkathon’s focus on societally pressing problems, Claremont College students were challenged to create solutions that “enable tech-naïve consumers to recognize and resist online scams.”

Each group defined unique points of view as the starting point for their designs, and the passion in the room was palpable as students fervently posited idea iterations and eagerly sought mentorship from founder and professional Peter Han. This year, Rebecca Yao., Indra Ramirez Antoni, Jack Chin & Emily Zhu took first place in the competition with their “GuardianAngel” solution.

Designed to safeguard Gen-Z users who date online, GuardianAngel is an in-person safety network in which “guardian angels” are mapped by location and matched with nearby users. Their platform aims to ease fears about catfishing and the dangers that can arise from online dating.

Witnessing our students in action on the day of the competition was truly inspiring. We love seeing them tackle real-world problems with innovative, user-centered design.

This work wouldn’t have been possible without our partner Pomona Ventures, the 5C’s most prominent and oldest entrepreneurship club. I had a chance to speak with Amber Feng, a Pomona student on PV’s Leadership Board, and asked her some more questions about Sparkathon.

How long has Sparkathon existed? What led to its inception and why?

Sparkathon has existed for 7 years, incubated in 2017 by Fabian Fernandez-Han (PO ’19), a former Pomona Ventures member. Sparkathon was created with the mission of supporting capable and compassionate students committed to solving real-world challenges through human-centered design. We aspire to cultivate an open and nurturing environment for all communities.

Why host Sparkathon at the Hive?

The goal of Sparkathon is to use human-centered design to solve challenges. During Sparkathon, students will empathize with a specific user, understand their point of view, ideate ideas, prototype, and test their products. This HCD process aligns perfectly with the Hive’s founding mission: cultivating creativity with real-world testing materials and opportunities.

How do you secure partners, mentorship, and sponsors for the event?

We usually secure partnerships through 1) contacting past judges, PV alumni, club members’ personal connections, and 2) cold emailing. 

What do you think is most important for students regarding this event? What does it offer them?

Sparkathon was founded as an alternative to narrowly defined business case competitions. Our goal is to maximize participation and collaboration among participants from diverse demographics and disciplines. Therefore, rather than viewing it as a competition, we wish students to treat it as an invitation to become more aware of and practical about the complexity and diversity of the current world. As we said in Sparkathon 2025’s email, “students should compete, but more importantly, students should have fun!”

Why should people join Pomona Ventures? Who should join?

Pomona Ventures is the 5C’s most prominent and oldest entrepreneurship club. We aim to incubate and support student entrepreneurs through Sparkathon, SageTank, and other activities. If you are interested in actualizing ideas that improve or change the current system, PV is the right place for you!

Each fall, Sparkathon sets students up for Pomona Ventures’ Spring competition, Sage Tank. If you’re interested in taking part in Sage Tank, contact Pomona Ventures and be on the lookout for promotional materials later in the semester for more information!