It’s no secret entrepreneurship starts with an idea yet the hurdle of breaking into the ecosystem is challenging especially if you’re young and inexperienced. Enter the inaugural PitchUp at Â鶹Çø.

Robust campus promotion, supportive faculty and students with tenacity resulted in more than 30 applications from 10 majors across the university. The planning team whittled the list down to 12 pitches. More than 220 people packed the Â鶹Çø Fine Arts Center to hear the pitches.

Winning pitches include:

First Place – Macro 2 Go ($1,000 prize)
McKay VanSickle (Marketing) and Jeff Erickson (Financial Planning)
A ready-to-go prepared and personalized meal kit delivery service targeted at members of gym communities who have a tight schedule.

Second Place – Recipls ($800 prize)
Eunjin Han (Music Composition) and Jisoo Park (Psychology)
An app that chooses a recipe for you to cook, based on your ingredients on hand, preferences, needs, and level of experience.

Third Place – MoodUp ($400)
Peter Peng (Engineering)
A mobile app that detects and tracks your mood every time you unlock your phone with facial recognition.

Fourth Place – Pushin Reefs ($250)
Zion Kim (Marketing), Olivia Miedema (Marketing), Matthias Schmidt (Engineering), Samuel Leduke, Marketing), and  Emilee Thé (Marketing)
Using 3D printing to restore the coral reefs and pushing it back out to nature.

Special thanks to President Le Roy, Pastor Mary and Professor Peter Snyder for partnering with audience participation to select the winners.

PitchUp was an event coordinated by Calvin Start-Ups, one of five co-curricular groups within the Â鶹Çø School of Business. The event was part of a series of events and programming to build the entrepreneurial ecosystem at Â鶹Çø.