Penn State Brandywine’s Entrepreneurship Club hosted a student pitch competition, its first major event as a student organization, on March 28, writes Christina Billie for Penn State Brandywine.

The competition featured six students in the club pitching their startup ideas to a panel of judges.

The Entrepreneurship Club is a new student organization on campus, just launching in the spring 2024 semester.

The mission of the club is to develop the entrepreneurial mindset necessary to create a startup business, and all club meetings typically focus on design thinking exercises, business and product development, and prototyping.

The student pitch competition was sponsored by the Brandywine LaunchBox, a signature program of Invent Penn State, a commonwealth-wide initiative to spur economic development, job creation and student career success.

The event was created to prepare students for the Idea TestLab Pitch Competition, which will take place in fall 2024.

The winner of the student pitch competition was Pranav Ramesh for his startup CTFGuide, a company that aims to help people easily learn about cybersecurity.

Second place was awarded to Tejas Chigurupati for his company Panic Lock LLC, a business with the goal of making school lockdown devices accessible for people with disabilities.

Third place was awarded to Francis Bockarie for his startup company MenteeMe, a mobile phone application that puts students and alumni in mentor-mentee pairs.

Chigurupati, president of the Entrepreneurship Club and Brandywine LaunchBox digital marketing intern, noted his main goal for the event was to get students’ ideas heard.

“With this event, I wanted to provide students with a place where they feel free to express their creative ideas,” Chigurupati said. “Not only that, but I wanted to make sure their ideas were able to be heard by Brandywine faculty, staff, administrators and fellow students.”

Tony Mattei, staff adviser of the Entrepreneurship Club and Brandywine’s director of entrepreneurship and digital marketing, was impressed by the progress students made over the past two months, and was proud of the students who put the event together.

“Beginning with our first club meeting at the start of the spring semester, the progress the students made on developing their pitches was remarkable,” Mattei said.

“The six students impressed both the judges and attendees, and I see great futures for all of them.”

Find out more about the Entrepreneurship Club and the student pitch competition at Penn State Brandywine.