Student innovators awarded over $15,000 at 2024 Charlotte Venture Challenge: Student Edition
The Charlotte Venture Challenge: Student Edition on March 27 recognized the impact of a journey of discovery for dozens of UNC Charlotte students. Campus and community leaders showed up for the University’s Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation event to celebrate the student teams.
The Charlotte Venture Challenge process started early in the Spring 2024 semester, seeking to engage as many UNC Charlotte students as possible and encourage them to envision how they could make an impact. Six UNC Charlotte colleges and over 25 majors were represented overall, with six teams participating in the final pitch.
Throughout the process, called the 49er Impact Path, CEI offered a series of engagement opportunities for students. Each step built upon the previous opportunity, helping the students grow their skills as they worked on their innovative ideas.
The 49er Impact path included:
- Studio 49: CEI hosted several ideation sessions across campus throughout February to start students thinking about the impact of their innovations.
- First Round: Over 30 teams submitted their 3-minute video pitches of their ideas. Judges narrowed the field to 12 semi-finalists.
- Second Round: During Mentor Madness, 12 student teams met with mentors and pitched their concepts in a live format. These semi-finalists had seven minutes with five mentors to receive feedback on their ideas and pitch to the judges. The students were then given 40 minutes to update their pitches and finally, went live with their updated pitches. The judges naming the final six were: Chris Moxley, Shannon Grant and Joshua McCray for the Disruptive Innovation Category, and Chad Stachowicz, Katrina Wiggins and Django Degree for the Social Impact Category.
- The Final Pitch: This final stage kicked off the Charlotte Venture Challenge: Student Edition on March 27 with each team having five minutes to pitch and three minutes of feedback. Judges were community founders, investors and UNC Charlotte faculty Christine Nicodemus, Aru Anavekar, Kyle Mayers and Justin Webb.
Awards
Disruptive Innovation Category
- First Place ($3,500) – Ariella Tal, Senior, College of Science
- Second Place ($1,250) – Will Papathanassiou, Senior, College of Humanities & Earth and Social Sciences
- Third Place ($750) – Owen Mitchell, Sophomore, Belk College of Business
Social Impact Category
- First Place ($3,500) – Daija Peeler, Senior, College of Humanities & Earth and Social Sciences
- Second Place ($1,250) – Sonia Birla, Junior, Belk College of Business and College of Humanities & Earth and Social Sciences, and Sarang Deshpande, Junior, Belk College of Business
- Third Place ($750) – Tori Rogers, Senior, College of Humanities & Earth and Social Sciences
UNC Charlotte Student Experience Panel
This panel featured University and community leaders as they discussed their involvement in critical student pathways across campus. Panelists included Patrick Madsen (Charlotte Career Center), Jennifer Warner (College of Science), Dr. Justin Webb (Belk College of Business), Banu Venkat (Truist) and Saliseah Scales (urbanCORE) and CEI’s Laura Smailes moderated. Students, faculty and community members gained insight about a variety of opportunities for students to gain critical career competencies - including entrepreneurial thinking - and how they can get involved.
