Martin J. Whitman students and alumni, who are all also active LaunchPad ventures, swept last week’s fifth annual Orange Tank competition — the first held in New York City. Among the winners, who are LaunchPad Global Fellows, Rubin Family Innovation Mentors, and members of the LaunchPad Founders Circle:
- Grand prize: CLLCTVE, $25,000, Kelsey Davis ’19 G’20 and Brendan O’Keefe ’21 for a digital platform that connects brands and Gen Z creatives
- Student division, first prize: Visos, $4,000, Matt Shumer ’23 for an innovative enterprise VR system for industrial training, education, medical simulations, design and more
- Student division prize: Modern Solutions, $2,500 Nick Barba ’20 and David Fox ’19 G ’22 for a personalized smart home installation service that is simple and seamless
- Alumni division, first prize: Gamercraft, $4,000, Jose Javier Garcia-Rovira ’19 and Quentin Rene Marcel Rosso ’18 for an E-Sports performance tracking and goal setting digital platform
- Alumni division prize: Awning, $2,500 Daniel Fridliand ’18 and Dylan Sen for a mental mobile application that generates customized stress relief routines
Orange Tank is a Shark Tank-style competition hosted by the Martin J. Whitman School of Management through the generosity of Orange Tank sponsors John Couri ’63 (A&S) and Mark ’83 and Judi ’84 (VPA) Morris. The event is open to current students and alumni entrepreneurs from the Whitman School of Management, who vie for up to $40,000 in cash prizes. A grand prize of $25,000 is awarded to the competition’s top finisher, with monetary awards given to ventures finishing in 1st, 2nd and 3rd place in both the student and alumni categories. Five alumni and five student ventures pitched at the competition.
The LaunchPad teams, pictured above, are close collaborators, and helped each other through preparation for the event. It is wonderful to see such close community spirit, as part of the ecosystem.