WVU student team wins third place, $2,000 in national pitch contest

Three students proved last week that West Virginia University is a national leader in entrepreneurship and innovation at the 4th Annual PitchTexas Competition, hosted by the University of Texas McCombs School of Business and Herb Kelleher Center for Entrepreneurship.

In the first round, the WVU team, made up of MD/PhD students Brandon Lucke-Wold and Zachary Wright and MBA student Brandon Cook, promoted their start-up business SwifTag to a panel of investors and entrepreneur, then fielded questions and challenges on the spot.

Their dynamic presentation took them to the final round of competition, which was also part of South by Southwest, an international conference and festival dedicated to “helping creative people achieve their goals.” There the WVU team earned 3rd place and $2,000, outscoring teams from MIT, UCLA and more than 30 other universities across the country.

The SwifTag, more advanced than anything currently on the market, is an ear tag for laboratory animals that uses state-of-the-art radio frequency identification and a smart phone reader to collect data for animal inventory and tracking. The system reduces both the excessive handling of animals and the chances of human error than can make lab processes inefficient.

The WVU team was sponsored by the WVU LaunchLab, which funded the trip to Texas and worked extensively with members in preparing for the competition. The three students also took advantage of the many other resources that the university offers student entrepreneurs, including the Brickstreet Center for Innovation in the College of Business and Economics, the Health Sciences Innovation Center and the WVU Entrepreneurship and Innovation Law Clinic in the WVU College of Law.

“PitchTexas made me realize that having resources like the West Virginia Statewide Collegiate Business Plan Competition really prepared us to take our ideas to competitions across the country and succeed,” Cook said. “It goes to show that no matter what university or state you’re from, a great idea is still a great idea.” 

LaunchLab Director Carrie White agreed.

“These students had an inspiration and made it a reality,” White said. “Working with them—and with all of our students who develop brilliant, innovative ideas—is at the core of the LaunchLab’s mission. To see our faith in these young people and their idea validated at a venue like SXSW is unbelievably exciting.”

PitchTexas offers business leaders from around the country a forum in which to meet and develop connections. WVU’s team gained invaluable exposure for their product and took home several business cards from potential investors and partners. They will use their prize money to fund an initial production of SwifTags for beta testing, the next step to getting their product on the market.

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jm/ac/03/17/17

CONTACT: Carrie White; director
WVU LaunchLab
304.293.9391; cwhite17@mail.wvu.edu