Student entrepreneurs showcase tech-driven solutions at Ilitch School Startup Technology Pitch Competition

On Friday, March 27, the Mike Ilitch School of Business hosted the finals for the second annual Startup Technology Pitch Competition, sponsored by OpTech and Ally. The competition, hosted by the Department of Technology, Information Systems and Analytics, and the Bell Labs, featured presentations from eight teams to a panel of judges.

"The Ilitch School and Wayne State University students demonstrated professionalism, innovation, creativity, and strong business principles as they competed in our Second Annual Startup Technology Pitch Competition. We are incredibly proud of the dedication and ingenuity our students have shown throughout this year's event," said Virginia Franke Kleist, Dean of the Mike Ilitch School of Business. "These projects reflect months of hard work, interdisciplinary collaboration, and a genuine commitment to solving real-world challenges. Experiences like this are transformative for our students, providing them with the confidence and skills to turn ideas into impactful ventures while engaging directly with leaders in our entrepreneurial community."

These presentations were the culmination of two semesters of extracurricular work for the student groups. Students formed interdisciplinary teams from across majors including business, medicine, and engineering. Workshops took place across the academic year to help students craft their pitches and refine their products.

Interdisciplinary teams of student entrepreneurs pitched products ranging from laundry service logistics to mobile invoicing, to an asthma relief toy designed for children. Teams were placed into either the business and consumer tech track or the science and life science track. Winners received investments in their startup of $10,000 for first place, $5,000 for second place, and $2,500 for third place.

First place for the business and consumer technology track was Barix, pitched by Joseph Burton, a finance and global supply chain management major, Joshua Vue, a computer science major, Tracy Hall-Petry, a computer science major, and Paloma Barragan, a digital marketing and analytics and finance major. Their startup Barix, helps independent contractors manage invoicing and payments through a mobile-first application.

Placing second in the consumer technology track was SUDSLY, a laundry management company, and placing third was Sineobex, a digital infrastructure tool for community-based healthcare.

First place for the science and life science track was OncoVue, pitched by Julia Tenbusch and Sruti Ramamoorthy, both students in the School of Medicine. Their startup provides real-time cancerous tissue analysis using a newly designed surgical spectroscopy probe.

Placing second in the science and life science track was Glucolast, a software providing real-time fueling recommendations for endurance athletes, and placing third was THEMA, an asthma relief toy for children.

Following the first round of presentations, Dug Song, co-founder of DuoSecurity, Michigan's first tech unicorn and multi-billion-dollar venture-backed acquisition was inducted into the Entrepreneurshipand Innovation Hall of Fame. He spoke about the importance of the venture ecosystem growing in Detroit.

"I encourage you to think about, again, your journey in entrepreneurship as truly a moral one. How can you create social good with the work you're doing, because otherwise you know a lot easier ways to make money within entrepreneurship," said Song. "What I see today is, you know, Detroit has a real right to win in so many areas...I don't think Detroit needs to be another Silicon Valley, I think the country needs a lot more Detroits."