Attended BSC: 2007- 2012
BSC achievements: 2010 World Challenge Participant | 2011 Exchange to Italy | 2012 Sport Captain | Highest grade award in year 12 for English, Business Management, and Outdoor Ed.
After finishing VCE at Brighton Secondary in 2012, Gabby Samkova completed a Bachelor of Business (degree in sport management) at Deakin. Having studied abroad a year of her degree in San Diego, she continued to pursue travel after graduation and moved to Bali for 18 months to work in her field. After taking up surfing whilst living in Bali and seeing the devastating amount of plastic pollution, Gabby decided to create a product that mixed her passion of the outdoors and to keep plastic out of our oceans and forests.
SomerSide beach and travel towels was established which prevents 8-14 plastic bottles from ending up in landfill by creating them into quick dry and sand resistant towels. In order to raise capital, Gabby launched her idea on a crowdfunding platform called Kickstarter and successfully raised $37,455 to fund the venture. Today SomerSide is stocked in 16 stores across Australia with hundreds of customers around the world as well as being recognised in Australian Federal Parliament for paving the way for sustainability and innovation.
“I’ve always been interested in business and entrepreneurship and essentially knew I was always going to start my own small business once I found something I was passionate about as I’ve always been passionate about many things including travel, sport, and the outdoors. SomerSide tied all these together and was a way for me to help the planet as well as being a niche in the market. Sustainability is such a big driver behind SomerSide and wanting to make a difference and it certainly hasn’t come easy but I’m excited to see where it takes me.”
SomerSide towels are sustainable, stylish, and incredibly versatile.
