Chris Lamontagne, Old Edwardian and CEO of a Silicon Valley creator commerce company, has returned (virtually) to Liverpool, announcing this year’s three winners of the inaugural Spark Scholarship.

A first-of-its-kind tech scholarship, it has been developed specifically to create new inspirational opportunities for students at the St Edwards College in West Derby. Chris returns for a second year, offering Sixth Form students the chance to showcase their technological ideas and to think outside the box.

Due to COVID restrictions, Chris launched the Scholarship virtually this year to Year 12 and 13 students at the end of last term with the opportunity for three students to be mentored by Chris in both business and networking skills. Students had to submit a tech-based business proposal to also be in with a chance of winning a MacBook, donated by Chris himself. Winners Christy, Yubin and Tobi were selected thanks to their breakthrough tech-based business proposals.

On the Spark Scholarship, Chris says: “This scholarship is something I’m very proud of and hold in high regard. I’m hugely grateful for the education I received at St Edwards and I feel a due diligence to create pathways for today’s students, helping them achieve their goals. Every year I’m blown away by their impactful entrepreneurial ideas and I’m looking forward to developing each one with them.”

Chris Lamontagne, centre, with pupils of St Edward’s College in 2019.

Student Christy’s idea -Well Bee-ing – is to create a better link between telehealth companies and users in one simple app that links health data for all users and not just those with serious long-term conditions. Yubin’s idea (Snapdocs) is to create an app for devices that saves work to online folders, reducing time and money to edit/create/share documents which would be beneficial for both students and businesses. Tobi’s is ‘the social media you can drink’ – a free water service paid entirely by advertisers the same way many social media companies are run.

Chris was born in Liverpool and attended St Edward’s from 1999-2006. He didn’t know what he wanted to do when he left, and began his entrepreneurial journey by founding his own company at 20.

In 2009, he was awarded with the title ‘Entrepreneur of the Year’ by The Prince’s Trust. He moved to London and joined Gett as Head of Growth, then gained exposure to leading technology startup companies during time at Investment fund Hambro Perks.

This led him to Silicon Valley company Spring (formerly Teespring), based in San Francisco, where he was announced as CEO in 2019. Spring is the world’s largest creator commerce platform, enabling creators to build businesses and create and sell products to their fans.

In 2019, Chris launched the Spark Scholarship as a first-of-its-kind tech scholarship, developed specifically to create new inspirational opportunities for pupils at St. Edward’s College. The two 2019 winners experienced a week-long placement working in San Francisco at the Spring offices, allowing the candidates to experience working with Google, Facebook, Amazon and YouTube, companies which Spring partner with.

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