The Franz Center for Leadership, Entrepreneurship, and Innovation once again hosted its annual venture pitch competition, Pilot Venture Challenge, as a live, virtual event due to the COVID-19 Pandemic. However, that didn’t seem to deter students from developing invention and venture ideas to pitch. This year there was a record number of sixteen entries in the finals.
The Invention Track, which highlights creativity, invention and innovation, was held on Saturday, April 17th. The Social Track, which encourages students to use entrepreneurial and business principles to organize, create and manage a sustainable enterprise that has a positive social impact, and the For-Profit Track were held on Saturday, April 24th.
Students, judges and guests joined online to hear and see 10-minute presentations by a total of 16 entrants. All entries were judged by expert panels of alumni and community business leaders. The winners are:
Invention
1st Place: Widget Tools, an essential multi-tool for board sport enthusiasts by Ben Messerly ’21 and Nick Robinson ’21.
2nd Place: rePLA, a bio-degradable filament for 3D printers by Melissa Tran ’23, Evangeline Muyano ’21, Rachel Hu ’21, Addie Zhao ’21, and Brytney Young ’22.
3rd Place: LuxShowers, an eco-friendly shower head to control water and energy consumption by Jessica Yoshioka ‘23.
The 1st and 2nd Place winners move on to represent UP at the statewide InventOR Semi-Final Competition April 23-25 and hopefully the Finals on June 24-25.
Social Venture
1st Place: RedemptionTech, a subsidized tech-rental service that provides ex-convicts access to technology to help connect them to jobs and resources as they re-enter society, by Olivia Brimhall ‘21, Justine Phan ‘21, Batara Siahaan ’22 and Georgia Sutjiadi ’22.
2nd Place: Scion Enterprise, a website to help educate and inform young people on financial and investing concepts by Trenton Sewell ’22 and Kenny Hiraoka ’21.
3rd Place: PolitiSquare, an online social platform for people to respectfully engage in civil discourse by Kevin Cochran ‘22.
For-Profit Venture
1st Place: Willamette Wick, an Oregon-based, small business that produces hand-poured, soy-wax, scented candles by Chelsea Power ’22 and Nicole Shea ‘22
2nd Place: Vino de Alma, an interactive, social wine making experience for individuals, small groups and special occasions by Jarrett Tapella ’21, Quinn Anderson ’21, Lisa Brown ’21 and Riley Farrell ’22.
3rd Place: Benson’s Lifestyle, a website/social media/app-based program to help people obtain their goals of a healthy mind and body by Kayla Benson ’21 and Daniel Rodriguez-Pena ‘22
For more information contact the Franz Center for Leadership, Entrepreneurship, and Innovation at franzcenter@up.edu.