In the spring of 2020 I originally entered the Koffman Incubator Pitch Competition as a challenge to improve my presentation skills. After falling ill (no it was not covid) I could not attend and vowed to come back to the challenge. In the fall of 2021 I saw an ad for the competition and entered, marking it on my calendar and thinking nothing else of it being so far off in the semester. On December 2nd at 10am I received an email: “If you’d like to use a slidedeck tonight please email it to me by noon”. Suddenly the time-crunch was on, instead of having weeks to prepare the perfect pitch, finals had snuck up on me and left me defenseless to the night’s competition. I quickly threw together a presentation for a concept I’d had kicking around for a while yet never embarked on (Duit) and submitted it during over lunch.
I sat down at the pitch competition surrounded by SOM (School Of Management) students knowing my efforts were mostly in self development and for fun. Little to my surprise, the judges really enjoyed my pitch and idea and awarded me first prize.