Entrepreneurship

On May 9, the 2024 Forbes Entrepreneurial Competition held its semifinals via Zoom. Since 1989, the Forbes Entrepreneurial Competition has sought to bring together student entrepreneurial teams, and give them the opportunity to pitch their ideas for prize money to invest in their respective businesses. Each team went through an extensive application process, tasked with submitting a business idea that included an overview of their company, their target market, their value proposition, and a market analysis.

Each team had 6 minutes to pitch their business idea, and 8 minutes to answer questions from a panel of judges. The judges were; Ibrahim Mohammad, a lecturer in mechanical engineering at UR and co-founder of Meliora Homes; Duncan Moore, a professor of Optical Engineering and Business Administration, and former Vice Provost of Entrepreneurship at UR; and Mark Rider, the VanArsdale Chair of Entrepreneurship at SUNY Geneseo and CEO of Accent Growth.

In first place came Formly, with members Tamuda Chimhanda ‘26, Samuel Henderson ‘25, Geneva Hinkson ‘24 (T5), and Nathaniel Angafor ‘25. In second place came FoodieBox, with members Lam Nguyen ‘24, Angelica Reyfer ‘25, Kevin Tusiime ‘24, and Rebecca Zapiach ‘24. In third place came HeartfulAI, with members Krish Jain ‘26, Aishi Roychoudhury ‘26, Sophia Kaganda ‘24, and Siddharth Narsipur ‘26. A huge thank you to the judges for their time and a huge congratulations to the winning teams!

SMD Entrepreneurs is a student-run organization that hosts a variety of entrepreneurial events for undergraduate and graduate UR students, from Q&As, to networking events, to pitch competitions. On Thursday, March 28th, they hosted their third annual Big Ideas in Science and Medicine Pitch Competition, seeking to bring together student teams with innovative ideas for a product, technology, or business and giving them the opportunity to present it to a panel of judges. This year, nine teams participated, each having three minutes to present their ideas with the hope of winning the first-place $1,000 prize.

The judges for this year’s competition were Anthony Franchini PhD, a staff scientist in the Pediatric Medicine department at URMC; Mike Riedlinger, a UR professor and Managing Director, Technology Commercialization at NextCorps; Shafaqat Rahman PhD, a recent UR alumni and Principal Scientist at AGTC; and James Butler PhD, a URMC alumni and current VP of Marketing at Hamamatsu Corporation. In first place came Team W.E.L.D., with members Aveisha Maharaj ’24 (MS CMTI), Judy Monickaraj ’24 (MS CMTI), Jazmin Phommavanh ’24 (MS CMTOI), and Ignacio Rodriguez ’24 (MS TEAM). In second place came Portico Health, with member Alexander McMullen ‘25 (PhD). In third place came VAPGuard, with members Aditya Gunturi ‘28 (M.D. Candidate, URSMD), Aashay Mardikar ’26 (BS), Sudarshan Ramanan ’29 (M.D. Candidate, SKMC), and Mathew Stephen ’30 (M.D. Candidate, URSMD). Congratulations to the winning teams and to everyone who participated!