NEW YORK – On Thursday, Feb. 29, the BIG EAST Conference will host the 2024 BIG EAST Startup Challenge, a competition featuring innovations and products from teams of student entrepreneurs representing all 11 Conference institutions. The competition returns virtually on zoom and will take place from 6 – 8 p.m. ET.
Each Startup Challenge team is comprised of currently enrolled undergraduate students at one of the 11 BIG EAST institutions. Teams will present their pitches to judges, who will rank them on a variety of factors including: idea/concept; market need; value proposition; feasibility; and passion and presentation.
The top three teams will receive an honorarium to be used to help grow their startup business.
The judges are seasoned entrepreneurs, innovators, venture capitalists and business leaders, A few have ties to BIG EAST institutions. Judges include:
Brandon Andrews, Entrepreneur and Co-Founder of Gauge
Chad Stender, Managing Partner, SeventySix Capital
Mike Kerrigan, Managing Director at Accenture
Andy Acs, Co-Founder, Chief Product Officer @hotel
David Simick, CEO & Co-Founder of SoapBox Soaps
The event will be MC'd by Meghan Caffrey of the BIG EAST Digital Network. The event is open to all who are interested.
The BIG EAST will welcome 2023 BIG EAST Startup Challenger winner Brendan Foody as a guest speaker to the event. Since then he's raised $3.6 million to grow Mercor, the leading platform for AI talent assessment. They complete hundreds of thousands of AI interviews where their custom version of ChatGPT will join a Zoom call and conduct thorough interviews of candidates. They go viral on LinkedIn a few times a week and work with some of the largest AI companies in the world.
Team entries are below:
| School |
Project Name |
Entrepreneurs |
| Butler |
Achieve Esports |
David Wade, Maddox Kaye |
| Connecticut |
Swipestorm |
Nathan Catapano, Allison Davenport |
| Creighton |
NIYOU |
Matt Mandolfo, Sam Perkinson, Valery Shafack |
| DePaul |
Get Flea Market |
Samantha Lapage |
| Georgetown |
Georgetown REUSE |
Rita Allen, Brooke Hodge, Stephane Granato |
| Marquette |
Tailored Remedy |
Abigail Crocker |
| Providence |
Friartown’s Closet |
Mary Gifford |
| St. John's |
Melior-Melworld |
Raiyan Bhuiyan |
| Seton Hall |
Pirate’s Closet |
Jason Santos |
| Villanova |
PocketSnap |
Ayden Lagalante |
| Xavier |
TestU |
Lance Kuo-Esser |
Georgetown's Gracey Owen won the third annual BIG EAST Startup Challenge a year ago with her innovation "Compost'd LLC." Under Owen's concept, she created a simple solution to composting with a freezable container to minimize issues left behind from mishandled food waste.
The BIG EAST hosted the inaugural Startup Challenge in 2019. Xavier's Casey Smith won for his venture transFarm. The event was held in conjunction with the BIG EAST Men's Basketball Tournament. The 2020 Startup Challenge was canceled due to the COVID-19 pandemic. In 2021, the winners of the challenge were Owen Delaney, Jacquelyn Ryan and Faith Linscott from Providence College with their innovation: "Umeal." In 2022, Gracey Owen won the event with innovation “Compost’d LLC.”
To join the conversation on social media follow #BIGEASTstartupchallenge.
Follow along on Zoom
HERE.