OU Students Compete and Learn in Pitch Competition
The Second Annual Pitch Competition engages students in learning more about starting a new venture and originated a year ago in conjunction with the Sooner Launch Pad. This new initiative formed in 2009 as a result of the collaborative efforts of both Price College’s Center for Entrepreneurship and the Center for the Creation of Economic Wealth. It provides both OU students and recent graduates an opportunity to pursue entrepreneurial endeavors and the Oklahoma community with an environment in which to grow and launch business ideas.
The competition took place on Nov. 19 and was funded by the generous support of Harry and Jane Pefanis. For the competition, students were requested to conceive a new idea for a project venture. The qualifying round consisted of two parts: a two- to three-page executive summary as well as a 10-slide deck for presentation to a panel of judges from OU and the Oklahoma business community. The competition is based on the elevator pitch concept, which is a concise presentation of an entrepreneur’s ideas, business model, customers, competition and unit economics. Five finalists are selected to participate in the presentation round, where they compete for up to $20,000 in cash awards. Judges evaluated the perceived viability of the venture and the poise and professionalism of the presentation and ranked the finalists based upon the quality of the content, the articulation of the team ideas and executive summary. This year, first place, with a cash prize of $8,000, was awarded to Amy Henderson, Mimi Nguyen and Ashley Zumwalt for their Languana program – an interactive game that teaches foreign languages