Tulane Business Model Competition announces 2023 semifinalists

Casey Grage, a graduate student at Johns Hopkins University, pitches her medical device startup Hubly Surgical to judges during the 2022 Tulane Business Model Competition. This year’s competition will take place on March 28-29 on Tulane University’s uptown campus.

Tulane University’s A. B. Freeman School of Business has announced the six semifinalist teams that will face off in the 2023 Tulane Business Model Competition.

Hosted by the Freeman School’s Albert Lepage Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation, the competition awards $125,000 in cash prizes to commercially viable student-led startups that demonstrate a market-tested ability to adapt to customers’ needs.

This year Tulane Business Model Competition will take place the week of March 27. The semifinal round will take place during New Orleans Entrepreneur Week (NOEW), the premier event celebrating entrepreneurship in our region, as part of “NOEW in Your Neighborhood.” The semifinal round will take place on Tuesday, March 28, with six teams presenting their ventures to a panel of judges. Three teams will be selected by the judges to pitch in the final round on Wednesday, March 29, to determine this year’s first, second and third place prize winners.

The winning team will receive a grand prize of $75,000. The second-place team will receive a $30,000 prize, and the third-place team will receive $20,000.

“This year we saw one of the most competitive application pools in the history of the competition, receiving a record number of applications from a record number of universities across the globe,” according to Rob Lalka, Albert R. Lepage Professor of Business and executive director of the Lepage Center. “The diversity of sectors represented in our 6 semifinalist teams is truly impressive, with ventures addressing an array of problems in biotech, healthcare, education, government, agriculture, and e-commerce. I look forward to hearing from these semifinalists, supporting them with meaningful connections during New Orleans Entrepreneur Week, and celebrating all of their achievements thus far - in addition to awarding the top three winners with significant cash prizes.”

The 2023 Tulane Business Model Competition semifinalists are:

• AI Learners (Cornell University) – AI-Learners is an educational technology (EdTech) platform for students learning math at the PreK-2nd grade level. The platform features 70+ math games that are specifically designed to meet the complex needs of students with all abilities across six core foundational math areas.

• Campaign Brain (Columbia University) – Campaign Brain is an artificially intelligent campaign management software, to be sold as a service (SaaS). Using machine learning, political science, and empirically proven campaign tactics and strategies, Campaign Brain guides a political candidate every step of the way from filing to elected office.

• Chiktopia (University of Georgia) – Chiktopia makes solar-powered, self-moving, automated chicken coops for an agricultural industry called pasture-raised poultry.

• HEARTio (University of Pittsburgh) – HEARTio is a digital diagnostics company which develops novel AI models to analyze early-stage medical tests.

• Sotira (University of California, Berkeley) – Sotira is a customizable and integrated financial tracking tool to help ecommerce sellers and resellers unlock the true potential of selling and reselling. Specifically, we help sellers and resellers be more profitable and streamline sales, profits, and pricing.

• SteadiSpoon (Southern Methodist University) – SteadiSpoon provides innovative measuring software to track tremors and stabilizing hardware devices to empower people suffering from debilitating hand tremors to regain agency, autonomy, and dignity.

 

COMPETITION DETAILS

Semifinal Round

Tuesday, March 28

2:30 – 6 p.m.

Lavin Bernick Center (LBC), Race Room #201, 2nd Floor

Tulane University

Register for the Semifinal Round by clicking here.

 

Final Round

Wednesday, March 29

10 a.m. – 1:45 p.m.

A. B. Freeman School of Business, Marshall Family Commons

Register for the Final Round by clicking here.

 

For more information about this year’s Tulane Business Model Competition, please contact Timekia Mallery, Lepage Center Manager of Student Programs, at 504-865-5455, tmallery@tulane.edu.