Pitch George

 

The annual Pitch George competition is one of GW's premier entrepreneurial initiatives organized by the GW Center for Entrepreneurial Excellence (CFEE). This "elevator pitch" competition takes place each fall semester and allows young entrepreneurs from any GW school to present their business ideas, get valuable feedback on the viability of their business concepts, and win up to $10,000 in startup capital. The competition offers a real-world view into entrepreneurship and hands-on preparation for the GW New Venture Competition (ranked #1 in the USA) through the support of GW's academia and network of business executives from the greater Washington, D.C. area.

 

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New Venture Track

First Place ($1,000)

Adjust-A-Bra

The Pitch

The venture my team and I are pitching is Adjust-A-Bra. Adjust-A-Bra is an online B2C shop that features a new patent pending redesign of the everyday sports bra. The product features a corset back that modifies the sizing of the bust, along with adjustable straps and a drawstring bottom band, all while being ethically made with sustainable fabrics. The Adjust-A-Bra target market will be women between the ages of 18-34 in the middle class who live a healthy lifestyle despite struggling with body changes. Based on competitive pricing, the product will be around $55 and have a profit margin of 30% per bra. This product eliminates the need for specific sizing, helps women save on added costs of a new bra, and removes the focus on body changes that come with bra shopping. The Adjust-A-Bra website will also feature an online community forum to discuss body image and promote helpful resources. Overall, Adjust-A-Bra wants to help hold women up without letting the cost of life slow them down.

Team members

• Camryn Baum - Undergraduate, School of Business
• Elizabeth Paul - Undergraduate, Columbian College of Arts and Sciences
• Ornella Libi - Undergraduate, School of Business
• Maria Camila Torres - Undergraduate, Columbian College of Arts and Sciences
• Myrto Aikaterini Kontoleon - Undergraduate, School of Business

Runners Up ($500 each)

Viewpoint Recovery Group

The Pitch

In 2021, over $49 billion in unclaimed assets were found throughout the United States. New York alone had $17 billion of unclaimed funds, only managing to return about 2.3% of it. State treasuries are intentionally doing a poor job at returning unclaimed assets to increase their own state budgets. At Viewpoint Recovery Group, our ultimate goal is to put money back in the pockets of everyday people by establishing an innovative and simplified path to claim assets. The industry of recovery groups is currently far behind the rapidly changing digital world, thereby limiting their outreach, and thus, their potential growth. Viewpoint’s core values are centered around trust. We prioritize establishing personal communication between us and our client base. We simplify the process so that the customer can gain a complete understanding of asset reclamation. By implementing our modern approach in an archaic field, we intend to alert the public of any potential unclaimed funds in their name.

Team members

• Stephen Shaw - Undergraduate, School of Business

GAAMI

The Pitch

It is not easy to teach your kids how to create a budget or how to make the right purchasing decisions. Parents find it difficult to control their children when it comes to money, how much are they spending, where are they spending their money, and when are they spending. Our solution is to create a platform where parents are able to transfer funds to their children using phone numbers and restrict the use of the funds. The way in which the platform would work is that both parents and their children would download the app and register using their phone numbers. The parents will be able to allocate which categories their children can use the funds for and how much in each category. Categories include food, entertainment, school supplies, savings,etc. This could give parents more control on how much and where their children spend money and greater assurance that the funds are spent responsibly.

Team members

• Ala Al Farsi - Undergraduate, School of Business
• Anas Mheir - Undergraduate, School of Business
• Giovanna Romariz Lino - Undergraduate, School of Business
• Ernesto Abreu Navarro - Undergraduate, School of Business
• Malcolm Nyman - Undergraduate, School of Business

 

Social Venture Track

First Place ($1,000)

She-Empowered

The Pitch

She-Empowered is a social enterprise headquartered in Botswana, Sub-Saharan Africa. While Botswana is the country with the highest number of women business-owners in the world, women in the country still face complex challenges related to female entrepreneurship. These include lack of knowledge and technical skills to better design and run profitable businesses, as well as limited access to credit when compared to men. She-Empowered is designed to address these issues. Providing women entrepreneurs with appropriate training in business management and connecting them to new digital marketplaces and business opportunities will enhance their skills and ultimately improve their chances of obtaining access to micro-credit financing. She-Empowered also alleviates women’s burden of running a business and a family by offering a network of philanthropic support to overcome the social biases against women operating in a traditionally male world (i.e., daycare services and convenient facilities).

Team members

• Julia Cardoso - Graduate, School of Business
• Zay Bo Bo Oo - Graduate, School of Business
• Yantonius Edyson Bessie - Graduate, School of Business

 

Tech Venture Track

First Place ($1,000)

Ellexco

The Pitch

Li-ion batteries have become ideal power supplies for cellphones, laptops, and electric vehicles. The national and international demand for Li is growing rapidly. The estimated demand for Li in 2030 is five times the size of the current Li supplies. The United States urgently needs to develop domestic Li supply to ensure energy security. Unconventional resources like geothermal brine contains high concentrations of lithium and can potentially serve as domestic lithium source. Ellexco offers a chemical-free, electricity-driven innovation to directly convert geothermal brine to lithium hydroxide. Our goal is to make lithium extraction cost-effective and environmentally friendly.

Team members

• Lingchen Kong - Graduate, School of Engineering and Applied Science
• Xitong Liu - Faculty, School of Engineering and Applied Science

Runners Up ($500 each)

Domus

The Pitch

Domus, meaning "house" in latin, is a platform centralizing renter and rentee agreements, leases, and payments. Similar to the Common Application used by students applying to college, Domus serves to eliminate the cost and hassle for potential renters by allowing them to search and apply for available rental spaces without having to create multiple applications for various leasing options. On the flip side, property owners will be able to reduce costs spent on leasing staff by offering tenants various housing options all in one platform. Domus uses smart contract technology, digital contracts stored on a blockchain, to automate the implementation of an agreement so that all parties may instantly be assured of the result, without the need for a middleman or further delay.

Team members

• Lisa Roberts - Undergraduate, Corcoran School of the Arts and Design
• Victoria Medina - Undergraduate, Corcoran School of the Arts and Design
• Ryan Lehman - Undergraduate, School of Business
• Vinay Patel - Undergraduate, School of Engineering and Applied Science

SkyLuggage

The Pitch

Big families want to travel and they want to buy extra space but it's so expensive. At the same time many people travel for business or for quick trips and they don't use the luggage space they have and they don't use. Those people can benefit by selling their extra space at a cheaper price to those who need it. Our solution is a mobile app that is going to connect the seller (extra space) to the buyers (people who need extra space for cheaper prices). We will take a transaction fee for our service as a revenue model.

Team members

• Ala Al Farsi - Undergraduate, School of Business
• Nicolas Yepez - Undergraduate, School of Business
• Noor Yazbeck - Undergraduate, School of Business
• Anamae Garcia de Paredes - Undergraduate, School of Business
• Anas Mheir Alsaadi - Undergraduate, School of Business

 

Globant Be Kind Tech Fund Awards

First Tier Winners ($1,500 each)

FutureZ

The Pitch

FutureZ confronts the future of employment for young talent. Employee retention is staggering low for young talent in many notable industries, as the incentives, values and perceived mobility are clearly not enough to establish loyalty between employee and company. Our company will be based on a network of young talent where we relay concerns, wants and needs of our employees as well as provide machine learning data analytics to best communicate ways in which companies can build a stronger work environment and drive the want to stay. We have two key aspects of the business: the data we can provide companies through our base of individuals in our system, and the implementation of talent workshops based on an annuity model to showcase eager talent introducing new ideas, hoping to fill greater roles, and wishing to drive innovation within their respective companies. We wish to join both the strength of data and the hidden potential of action to create a more understanding future of work.

BKTF Component

AI bias within the hiring process of employees is a great issue in unfairly promoting talent that may be unfairly judged based on a very set list of conventional credentials. With our machine learning data, we hope to target the often racial, sexist or prejudiced notions AI pushes in reflection of our own society within traditional resumes. Instead, we want to focus on other variables to what makes an employee or candidate more worthy of a position or a potential project within a company. Even with our own data, we have another side of our consultancy which is to showcase talent potential, so that the data alone will not be the sole influencer in determining whether an individual is worthy or not of work.

Team members

• Aidan McAndrew
• Matteo Larrode

Dripsy

The Pitch

Dripsy provides ketamine therapy in a safe, supportive, and comfortable clinical setting to be paired with complementary therapies to address conditions such as depression, anxiety disorders, substance dependencies, and chronic pain.

BKTF Component

Dripsy will address data and privacy concerns. As a venture that specializes in health and wellness we understand the emerging concerns regarding the security and privacy of data and records when undergoing sensitive treatment. Through the use of HIPAA compliant software and EHR to analyze and store data, patient's will be reassured that any potentially published clinical will be de-identified and if to be shared with another treating provider, a signed release form will be required. A thorough consent form will be carefully explained to confirm that the client understands the nature, condition, risks, and potential benefits.

Team members

• Scott Whetsell - Graduate, School of Business

MOON

The Pitch

MOON is designed to guide the younger generation familiarize themselves with investing. Teachings the principles of investments and growing your wealth. This app would provide children, in basic terms, a general understanding of how to grow their wealth and build merit. Being a simple and straightforward game, kids would be able to digest the concept of stocks at an early age, giving them a better understanding before growing up and entering the adult world, this will help them understand financial literacy at an early age and will allow them to make smarter financial choices through their lives. This app will be unique at exposing its users to age-specific content as kids will be able to "Buy Stocks" with STAR dollars and if this stock appreciates they will able to sell it and get rewards in exchange for that which they will be able to use as gems/credits in other apps. The goal of this app will be for its users to reach the MOON.

BKTF Component

Screen time abuse: the app will monitor the screen time of its users and it will punish them by decreasing the stock value by 1% if the app is used for over 1 hour a day. Additionally, It will have backend data protection software that will protect the users information.

Team members

• Alejandra Taboada - Undergraduate, School of Business
• Diego Gonzalez - Undergraduate, Elliott School of International Affairs
• Mashail Alsheikh - Undergraduate, School of Business

Runners Up ($500 each)

Kokee.io

The Pitch

Kokee.io is a marketing technology firm shaping the future of advertising. We partner with retail brands to bring mixed reality (MR) applications to their marketing mix, helping these companies to gain a first mover advantage on new advertising technology. MR ad placement costs are projected to be significantly lower than traditional marketing channels, since advertisements can be placed on any physical surface when viewed through an AR or VR device. Despite the clear opportunity, MR has yet to become a staple advertising solution for many organizations. We believe this is a risky, short-sighted view. These companies are at risk of being left behind, relying too heavily on costly traditional marketing channels like search, email, social, TV, social, and print media. Kokee’s mixed reality applications will help these firms to gain a competitive advantage for years to come.

BKTF Component

Marketing technology relies on customer data that is oftentimes gathered without the individual’s consent, resulting in a breach in data privacy. Kokee will not use cookie-based data to serve advertising solutions through its AR or MR applications. Instead, it will rely on direct consent from its customers to serve up custom, personalized advertisements. Furthermore, augmented reality advertisements developed by Kokee will be created in a manner that is accessible to all, ensuring no barriers that prevent interaction with our applications by differently abled persons.

Team members

• Rob Vazquez - Graduate, School of Business

ReSwap

The Pitch

This venture is based on providing access to customers for restaurants that are in high demand in order to manage reservations that would otherwise be unavailable. More often than not, the reality of canceling an existing reservation is slim to none, leaving restaurants with empty tables they can no longer fill. This causes a disadvantage to both restaurants and customers. Through ReSwap, restaurants will be able to make optimal revenue by successfully filling their availability. Meanwhile, customers wanting to attend high demand restaurants that are subject to availability are able to find reservations. ReSwap will allow the users to post existing reservations to the platform for others to claim. Incorporating a point system will motivate the users to post their existing reservations that they no longer want. Last minute cancellations often result in a fee, but through ReSwap, people can alleviate this inconvenience by giving up their reservation for whoever wants it.

BKTF Component

Data and privacy is one of the 5 harmful facets of technology we have chosen to address in ReSwap. In the world of technology, there has been an issue of transparency regarding cookies and how an app shares and stores the users data. In the creation of an application of ReSwap, we are keeping this at the forefront, and strive to be 100% transparent with the users on how their information is being collected and stored for their benefit, not harm. All users will be provided an easy to read terms and conditions that will need to be accepted upon downloading the app. In comparison to most applications and their difficult to understand agreement forms, ReSwap will provide a transparent and simple method of communicating with the user. This helps avoid simply pressing "accept" and ensures the user retains all information regarding their privacy.

Team members

• Mia Safar - Undergraduate, Columbian College of Arts and Sciences
• Amalya Ghazzawi - Undergraduate, Columbian College of Arts and Sciences
• Isabela Maria Pleitez - Undergraduate, Columbian College of Arts and Sciences
• Clendenin Ryan Stewart - Undergraduate, School of Business

Val-assessed

The Pitch

Val-assessed is more than an idea. Val-assessed is the future. We aim to develop a software which uses an algorithm that allows both, individuals and business, to evaluate an idea or business development strategy respectively. How? By analyzing databases about different authentication criteria required to produce the results. Our mission is to provide closest to precise valuation, rate of success and/or PnL ratios to all individual ideas and business development strategies, helping people achieve their goal. We are based in Washington, DC and have an on-demand and subscription-based business model. Our company is part of the $5.2 trillion global technology industry. We aim to become the world’s go-to software for our wide target market of all aspiring entrepreneurs, investors, employees and business owners to evaluate their startup ideas and business decisions. Are you ready to be Val-assessed?

BKTF Component

In Val-assessed, our mission is to provide the best service possible for our clients. However, we also recognize that we have a duty. This duty consists on contributing to create a culture of responsibility and ethic use of technology, being accountable for our actions. In this attempt, we want to make a promise: to use our technology for the common good. Since our technology does have existing AI used to interpret user inputs, all interpretations of keywords and data from the databases used to produce results will be taken from credited sources and not produced by us. We want to create a service that doesn’t discriminate any one, regardless of age, race, nationality, income and so on. Moreover, our algorithm will consist of an error possibility to avoid biased results. We aim to create a powerful tool, and hence the need to protect it from AI bias and unreliable results, ensuring these steps are taken is vital.

Team members

• Jai Anshul Monga - Undergraduate, School of Business
• Judit Ibanez

 

Special Category Prizes ($1,000 each)

Best Delivery: Domus
Best Customer Discovery: GAAMI
Best Problem/Solution: Viewpoint Recovery Group

 

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Pitch George Resources for Student Teams

• GW Office of Innovation & Entrepreneurship Pitch Coaching - View a PowerPoint workshop for PitchGeorge
• GW Office of Innovation & Entrepreneurship Mentors in Residence - Receive guidance, coaching, perspective, and connections to enhance entrepreneurship at GW
   

Read the 2022 Pitch George Competition Info Deck

 

Our Sponsors

 

Learn About the Globant Be Kind Tech Fund

In an effort to raise awareness about ethical technology, the Globant Be Kind Tech Fund will be awarded to select team(s) that show a true interest and understanding in ethical technology as part of their venture. The Be Kind Tech Fund is an international corporate venture capital fund administered by Globant Ventures. It supports startups developing apps, products and platforms that mitigate the negative effects of technology.

Hear Globant's VP of Entrepreneur Relations, Joaquin Morixe, explain the mission and details of the Be Kind Tech Fund (video password: *k7v5^$g)

Read the Globant Be Kind Tech Fund One-Pager

 

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Past Winners

2021

 

2020

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Contact Us

For more information, please contact Kathy Korman Frey, director of the Center for Entrepreneurial Excellence (CFEE), at [email protected]. Questions and comments can also be directed to the project manager, Jessica Vodilka, at [email protected].