Trent Students Sweep All Categories at FastStart ‘Pitch It! Ideas Unleashed’ Competition
Bright business minds and brilliant ideas emerge at Dragons’ Den-style competition
Creativity, strategic analysis and unabashed courage were on full display at the second annual FastStart ‘Pitch It! Ideas Unleashed’ entrepreneurship competition held at the University of the Institute of Technology (UOIT) on Wednesday, October 5, 2016.
Under the theme of innovative ideas with the purpose of economic and/or social benefit to the region, Trent University students brought their ‘A’ game and best business cases, hoping for more victories this year.
Along with other finalists from UOIT, Durham College and Fleming College, Trent students had three minutes each to convince a panel of industry judges that living, breathing walls, an online grocery app for busy students, DIY nights at the local pub and a landlord rating system are viable business ventures.
The evening resulted in a clean sweep for Trent University students Isioma Mafiana, Christian Schortemeyer, Daniel Stewart, and Lauren Doorensplett, who scored top prize in all four categories: Agriculture and Food; the Environment; Information and Technology, and the Trades. Aside from an invaluable real-world networking and presentation experience, the students took home a $500 prize in each of the categories.
“I want to go home and call my mom right now,” stated Isioma Mafiana following his team’s victory in the Agriculture & Food category with their Groceries2Go presentation. “We started out with something that was just an idea and now it feels like I could do something with it. I want to make it a business. I want to thank Trent for giving me the chance to do it.”
Sponsored by FastStart, an entrepreneurial training partnership aimed at university and college students, the competition brought together judges from industry, students and academic partners including the Spark Centre and the Greater Peterborough Innovation Cluster.
FastStart students have the opportunity to work alongside entrepreneurs, and experienced advisors at The Cube, a technology incubator and part of the Greater Peterborough Innovation Cluster and Spark Centre, an innovation hub in Oshawa.
Rosalea Terry, entrepreneurship and marketing coordinator at the GPIC manages the FastStart program for Trent University and helped prepare many of the students for the competition. According to Ms. Terry, “Trent students killed it.”
The Winners of the 2016 Pitch It! competition include:
Agriculture and Food
Isioma Mafiana - Groceries2Go
Post-graduate student in Marketing and Entrepreneurship
The Environment
Christian Schortemeyer -Viride Living Walls
Fourth-year Bachelor of Business Administration student with a Specialization in Entrepreneurship
Information & Technology
Daniel Stewart- Rate My Landlord App & Website
Fourth-Year Business Administration student
The Trades
Lauren Doorensplett – The DIY project
Fourth-year Business Administration student specializing in Marketing