Kellogg-Schulich EMBA Students Pitch and Win with Venture Design Ideas
Kellogg-Schulich EMBA students recently participated in a pitch competition as part of their New Venture Design (NVD) Course. Each year students have the opportunity to participate and win monetary awards for their new business design ideas.
“Congratulations to team Dollar Build, a brilliant FinTech solution for the design and construction industry for securing first place,” said Chris Carder, Executive Director of the Schulich Office of Innovation and Entrepreneurship and one of the instructors in the course.
Dollar Build team members David Sherrard, Benjamin Valliquette, Jason Basu and Sweekruth Somaraju won the Peyvand Melati NVD Prize for their business startup concept. The prize of $5,000 is donated by EMBA alumnus Peyvand Melati (EMBA ’18).
“I must say that I was blown away this year by the quality of the pitches,” said Professor Moren Lévesque, Co-director of Entrepreneurial Studies. ” I believe that the high caliber of the guests we could bring this year, which was facilitated by the course being fully online, has significantly inspired the teams to move their pitch to the next level. The Dollar Build team did an amazing pitch with the most beautiful transition from one speaker to the next I have ever seen!”
Team Nomikai received the Igor Kim (MBA ’19) and Boris Gopka NVD Award celebrating accomplishments, creativity, and talent as the second-place winning team. Jason Evans, Michael Jordan-Watt, Sara Mahzar and Mahsa Rejali will receive $2,500.
Both teams received Schulich Startup Perks and Benefits program and all finalist teams received complimentary headshots by Style Photos, a Schulich startup founded by Khasan Aripov (BBA ’14).
Special thanks to Sanjana Basu, Investor, Radical Ventures; Jack Fraser (EMBA ’13), Partner, BDC Capital’s Growth Venture CI Fund; and Jeffery Potvin, Angel Investor, York Angel Investors and Open People Network for judging the pitch competition.