Over 30 teams presented to the 100+ in attendance at the CU New Venture Challenge (CUNVC) pitch day held Thursday evening. Pitch day was a first glance into the ideas of many of the teams planning to compete in the CUNVC in April. Along with competing for the $100 cash prize for the best pitch, many teams were also attempting to spur the interest of potential new members to round out their teams. Each team had two minutes to introduce its members, its idea, and describe what it was looking for in additional team members.
Presenters included undergraduates, graduate students from a variety of disciplines including engineering, business, aerospace, and law as well as instructors and alumni. Ideas spanned from Web 2.0 and wireless communications to life sciences and clean tech. Based on the new team member requests, it seems that business expertise, specifically marketing, finance and business development, is about as hard to come by as a quality left-handed pitcher. Several teams also wanted to add programmers and coders to their ranks.
A number of the IT related ideas featured new takes on social networking. Multiple presentations also focused on improved travel websites and new educational offerings over the web. One of the more entertaining presenters of the night was Aaron Lucas who is seeking to develop an iPhone application. Lucas, a self proclaimed geek, has created a way for himself to wake up to the RSS feeds (a blog and news aggregation system) to which he subscribes being read to him over his iPhone (because there is nothing like tech news to get you going in the morning). He hopes to bring these portable, audio versions of RSS feeds to others through a new iPhone application and is seeking coding support.
Some presenters had goals for their ventures beyond the many zeros they would see on the check after their companies were acquired by Google. One presenter among this group was CU undergraduate student Angela Dowdy who wants to bring educational programs as well as public health improvements to Cambodia. Inspired by her own travels in Cambodia, Dowdy thinks that making social improvements would both benefit the well-being of people and speed the economic growth of the area and is seeking others with expertise in education and environmental engineering to join her team.
The winner of the night, as judged by Pam Shepherd of Greenmont Capital, was Diatronics which is trying to integrate blood glucose monitoring with insulin delivery for diabetics. The CU New Venture Challenge offers a number of programs including crash courses and workshops open to the public leading up the final competition to be held the week of April 13 to 17. Teams must submit intent to compete by March 20th. To qualify, a team must have at least one team member with a CU ID. The next event is a crash course entitled Growing a Startup Amid Uncertain Economic Times and will take place November, 12 at 5:00 pm in Room 204 of the Wolf Law Building. Please visit the CUNVC website for more information.
