Make-A-Pitch event brings bold ideas to CMU


makeapitch
Linden junior Evan Latner pitches his business idea, GrubDaddy, to a panel of judges during the Make a Pitch New Venture competition on Wednesday in Grawn Hall.

Drinkable acne-gone and a wristband that monitors dehydration may seem like something out of a science fiction film, but such ideas were just two of the 23 pitched to a panel of judges at the Make-A-Pitch event Wednesday night.

Six judges, all with backgrounds in entrepreneurship and business in Michigan, reviewed "elevator pitches" from students. Pitch sessions gave students two minutes to sell their product. After two minutes, the pitchers would be signaled to stop, and the judges would give their feedback.

Ragnar Avery, a Mentor-in-Residence for the New Venture Competition, stressed how important Make-A-Pitch was - not only to the Entrepreneurship Department - but to the College of Business Administration as a whole.

“The Make-A-Pitch is a great example where  students really begin an opportunity to take the learnings they have and the concepts they develop in the classroom and make it real,” Avery said. “Especially when you couple this with the New Venture Competition, it really gives the students an opportunity to test their idea, get valuable feedback, and be able to fill those gaps so that as they take their idea further.”

Chuck Crespy, dean of the College of Business Administration, and newly appointed chair of the Entrepreneurship Department, Ken Sanney, were also in attendance.

Crespy was impressed by the pitches he heard, adding the event gets “better every year.”

“CMU is all about providing students with opportunities,” Crespy said. “The volunteer staff and faculty who participate in this competition really create an avenue for students to do something they otherwise might not be able to do when they entered as freshmen.”

Individuals making pitches utilized skills learned at CMU and through internships and field work as well.

Brian Stark, a first-year graduate student in the Department of Geography, came before the panel with little more than his Army training and a love for environmentalism. In an attempt to live up to his name sake, Stark pitched his business: Ironman Aviation.

Growing up in Erie, Stark spent of his youth bailing hay on a farm. Though he considers himself an environmentalist, Stark pitched the idea of drone farming.

“(Ironman Aviation is) using UAVs – unmanned aerial  vehicles – to fly over farms which will be able to tell plant stress, the yield of a field, pesticide and herbicide use and whether or not (farmers) actually need to use (pesticides),” Stark said. “If you can tell (farmers) where they actually have to put herbicides and pesticides, then they don’t have to spray certain areas. If an area isn’t getting enough yield, they can just cut out that area.”

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Troy senior Jordyn Hermani, Editor-in-Chief of Central Michigan Life, is a double major ...

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