High school student's phone case project wins innovation award

Murray Bridge High School student Abby Altamura has won an innovation award for her sustainable business idea.

Liana Webster

Nov 28, 2024 — 3 min read

Abby Altamura with Murray Bridge High School Principal Ruth Mussger at Presentation night. Photo: Jacob Jennings Photography.

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What started out as a "basic idea" for an innovative business has won local high school student Abby Altamura an award.

Abby's phone case project, for her business innovation class, was part of her academic successes.

Her business innovation award, sponsored by Murray Bridge News, was presented at the school's presentation night last Monday.

Abby's project included a sustainable, fully customisable phone case business.

"Trying to get (the cases) customisable while getting sustainable materials took a lot of research," she said.

"The back was interchangeable and it included different attachments like card holders."

Abby's plan for her phone case business was to have fully sustainable edges of the case and interchangeable compostable backings.

"All you had to do was buy the edge piece, and then you could keep swapping out the back," she said.

A 30-page folio included the plan for the business, how she would start it, information about the product, manufacturing details and costs.

Abby looked at ways it might be possible to continue her idea outside of the classroom but there were a lot of factors to consider.

"Looking a manufacturers overseas and such, it's definitely expensive to start ... and it's a really big market, but there's not a lot of people who do interchangeable phone cases," she said.

Initially Abby was actually in another class but decided to go into business innovation two weeks into the school year.

"I'd never done business before, but I thought I might as well try it and it was actually alright," she said.

She also took home the year 12 creative arts subject award on the night.

"It was a bit of a shock, I think my mouth opened and the principal was standing there laughing at me," Abby said.

The award presentations were a reminder of how far each graduate has come and how bright their futures are.

A highlight of the night was each student’s name being called up so they could walk across stage to receive their well-deserved graduation certificates.