Game on! The 2021 ACC InVenture Prize Syracuse University campus edition is this Friday, January 29 from 2 p.m. to 4:30 p.m. Watch the “Battle of the Brains” as the best Orange innovators go head to head competing for a grant prize sponsored by M&T Bank and a spot at the ACC Conference finals. Here is where you can tune in to watch and cheer on your favorites. Judging the teams will be a slate of six amazing experts who will bring their “Shark Tank” skills to the job.
Schedule:
2:00 p.m. — Welcome by David Seaman, Dean of Libraries and University Librarian followed by greetings and brief remarks by former Syracuse University ACC InVenture Prize winners Kate Beckman (2017 winner) and Kayla Simon (2018 winner)
Pitches:
2:15 p.m. in alphabetical order
- Ambassadoor Technologies, Bruno Gonzalez Hauger
- Cirus, Alexander Don
- doNATION, Ben Ford
- FSCL, Sam Hollander
- Keep Coffee Casual, Murray Lebovitz
- Signal, Kyra Thomas
- Spread, Cullen Kavanaugh
- Sugex, Russell Fearon
4:30 p.m. – Grand prize announcement by Allen Naples, Regional President at M&T Bank
The judges bring a range of skills from industrial design to mechanical engineering, digital media and marketing, finance, investment, and diversity and inclusion. They include:
- Kate Beckman ’17 G ’18, Senior Content Manager at Ripple Match and former freelance writer at Cosmopolitan, Founder of FreshU, Speaker for Advertising Week and 2017 ACC InVenture Prize winner
- Rob Englert, founder and principal designer of ram industrial design, a consultancy specializing in consumer products, user interactions and experiences for a portfolio of global brand clients, and also co-founder of (sphere) optics company
- Joanne Lenweaver, founder and co-farmer of Clean Slate Farm, president and creative director at Lenweaver Advertising + Design, and former long-time director of the WISE Women’s Business Center
- Kayla Simon ’19, Integration Engineer at Relative Space and former Propulsion Test Engineer at Virgin Orbit, co-founder of In-Spire, former LaunchPad Global Fellow and LaunchPad Watson Scholar and 2018 ACC InVenture Prize winner
- Marcus Webb ’19 and G ‘22, Economic Inclusion Fellow at Center State CEO
- Ryan York, President of York Wealth Management, former CEO of Pinnacle Investments LLC and a Syracuse University alumnus