Asper undergraduate students pitch to judges at inaugural ENTR Pitch Competition.
Experiential learning sparks entrepreneurial spirit in Asper undergraduate students
On Friday, October 25, the Stu Clark Centre for Entrepreneurship (SCCE) hosted the inaugural ENTR 2030 Pitch Competition for 185 undergraduate students who were ready to pitch their business idea in a two-round pitch competition.
In Round One, 38 teams pitched their venture for two minutes in front of the judges. Following the pitch, judges had the opportunity to ask the team questions for one minute. After deliberation, the judges picked the top six teams to advance to the finals in the Fishbowl.
In Round Two, the six finalists teams pitched their idea again in front of 185 of their peers, three alumni industry judges including; Matt Schaubroeck [MBA/17] from North Forge Technology Exchange, Christos Vasilarakis [BComm (Hons)/14] from Bold Commerce and Josh Zaporzan [BComm (Hons)/16], the SCCE’s Venture Coach. Gady Jacoby, Dean and CPA Manitoba Chair in Business Leadership, Asper School of Business, of Zhenyu Wu, Associate Dean, Research and Graduate Research Programs, and Canada Research Chair, Junyon Im, Assistant Professor, and Wenlong Yuan, Associate Professor, also judged the competition. These Asper faculty members were on the committee that created the new course, and were adamant on the inclusion of the pitch contest in order to introduce Asper undergraduate students to this type of competitive environment.
“We were amazed by both the variety of ideas that were pitched, as well as the quality of the pitches. Even more exciting was how the students embraced the competition and gave it their all. For many of the students, doing a pitch is a new challenge, one that can incite a bit of anxiety! However, they were definitely up to the challenge, and by the wild applause by the crowds, those efforts were really appreciated,” says Debra Jonasson-Young, Executive Director of the Stu Clark Centre for Entrepreneurship.
ENTR 2030: Introduction to Entrepreneurship: Business and Social Perspectives is a new core course for all incoming Asper School of Business students. The course is a new opportunity for Asper students to spark the entrepreneurial spirit in an experiential way.
If you are not an Asper student, but this course sounds interesting to you – keep your eye out for ENTR 2020, which is a parallel course for non-Asper students available starting Winter 2020.
