College Pitch Philly Student Business Pitch Competition

Very proud to share this press release on the inaugural College Pitch Philly competition. Some additional press here.

College Pitch Philly Student Business Pitch Competition
Philadelphia, PA — February 24, 2016 — Over 30 teams gathered at the University City Science Center’s Quorum yesterday evening representing 11 colleges and universities across the Greater Philadelphia region for a chance to win from a pool of $15,500 in cash prizes. Made possible by Startup PHL and led by the Philadelphia Regional Entrepreneurship Education Consortium, College Pitch Philly aims to increase collaboration among local university entrepreneurship programs while giving students a
way to present their ideas beyond their campus.

“This event is a fantastic example of our new Consortium’s ability to bring diverse students together and introduce them to the wider entrepreneurial ecosystem. We each work to serve our communities, but having this larger regional format is truly unique. Students are able to connect with others they may never have otherwise met.” Consortium member and Blackstone Launchpad Director at Philadelphia University, Zoe Selzer McKinley emphasizes, “This has tremendous potential to help build a stronger and more
cohesive collegiate entrepreneurship community.”

A call for ideas was issued in Fall 2015 and open to all currently enrolled undergraduate students attending any college or university throughout the region. This call and opportunity was available to students in any disciple and major. Over 30 teams were invited to pitch at yesterday’s competition event with 6 finalists asked to give final presentations in front of a public audience, primarily made up of entrepreneurs, professors, and other business professionals. Cash prizes were awarded and made
possible by: Comcast, Wharton Entrepreneurship, RobinHood Ventures, and NextFab. Audience members also had the chance to vote on their favorite pitch for the People’s Choice Award.

Archna Sahay, Director of Entrepreneurial Investment in the City of Philadelphia’s Department of Commerce, reinforces this initiative’s purpose, “With the Startup PHL grant, we hoped to witness ideas coming to life through that serendipitous way when diversity exists in a room. With the hard work of the Consortium, we see that. We want to make sure our current and future students know that the City supports their entrepreneurial drive and has the resources to help them bring their vision to life right here in their own backyard – launch in Philly, build in Philly, and take over the world from Philly!”

The winners are:
● 1st Place: Habitat (tryhabitat.com), Andrew Nakkache, Class of 2016, Temple University
Habitat makes it easy for college students on campus to order pickup and delivery from their favorite food trucks and local restaurants. They help their vendors, who do not typically offer any online delivery, to become more ‘mobile’ online by making delivery easy and simple with no cash exchanging hands.
● 2nd Place: Rungh Cosmetics (www.rungh.com), Neha Raman, Class of 2018, Temple University The Rungh System is a 60 second process to create your own nail polish color. The set consists of base liquid bottles, color capsules, a specially engineered mixer with detachable tips to blend your perfect color to suit your mood or outfit at anytime.
● 3rd Place: SayUmm (sayumm.co), Danish Dhamni, Class of 2017, Drexel University
SayUmm is an on demand, personalized speech feedback application in Virtual Reality. Practice anytime, anywhere and receive feedback on your delivery immediately.
● People’s Choice: BioCellection (biocellection.com), Miranda Wang, Class of 2016, University of Pennsylvania BioCellection is producing economic, sustainable, and consistent fish aquafeed components to ensure fish health through a microbial process that recycles plastic in a way that minimizes waste and outputs two bi-products: a safe cleaning agent and aquafeed. They envision the future of our oceans to be sustained through biotech innovation.

“We expect this will be the first of a number of initiatives that the Consortium will develop to provide college students with the opportunity to build new relationships across schools and to get them more opportunities to participate in a vibrant startup ecosystem,” Chuck Sacco, Consortium member and Director of Drexel University’s Laurence A. Baiada Institute for Entrepreneurship shares.

Sponsors included: Startup PHL, Blackstone Launchpad, University City Science Center, Comcast, RobinHood Ventures, NextFab, Wharton Entrepreneurship, Campus Philly

Final Round Judges: Glen Gaddy of RobinHood Ventures, Christine Kane of Comcast, Chris Laing of University City Science Center, Archna Sahay of City of Philadelphia Department of Commerce First Round Judges: Fred Berg, Jeff Bodle, Adam Greenspan, Harvey Hoffman, Alex Kaplan, Satyajeet Shahade, Jared Shelly, Raj Singh, Bob Solomon, Ken Tomlinson, Tracey Welson-Rossman, Amy Yozviak