More than 100 teams ready themselves for the Pitch Party

An entrepreneurship competition — the main event of Kenan-Flagler Business School's Global Entrepreneurship week — will pit more than 100 teams against each other Thursday night in a battle for  up to $1,000 in prize money. 

In the Carolina Challenge's Pitch Party, teams will be given two minutes to try to convince a room full of judges to put money in their cup. The top ten teams will be given a cash prize.

The event will be held in The Blue Zone of Kenan Stadium at 5:30 p.m. 

Kris Hergert, associate director of the MBA Career Management Center in the Kenan-Flagler Business School, organized the event. Hergert said the challenge originated to help promote entrepreneurship to UNC students across majors.

“We want to give students an outlet to try something while they are students," he said. "Like, what's a better time than now?”

The Challenge is hoping to establish UNC as the top place for start-up businesses.

“We have so much tradition in entrepreneurship. Especially with the business school — the Flaglers and the Kenans were both entrepreneurs,” Hergert said.

Jim Kitchen, business school professor and faculty advisor for the Carolina Challenge said the event not only gives students a chance to win money but also gives them professional practice. 

“It is a way for them to not only tell the community what they are doing but to get practice at pitching, which is important,” he said.

More than 110 teams from various disciplines are participating in the challenge this year, up from 48 in 2013.

“We have done a good job getting the word out, which is why we have twice as many ventures pitching this year versus last year,” Kitchen said.

One participant, sophomore Devin Hanaway, will be pitching two ventures at the coming competition. This is his second Challenge event.

“It was a great opportunity to test our idea out, and it has changed completely since then,” he said.

The event taught Hanaway how to apply many of the professional skills he had learned during classes, he said.

“How to work with others, how to manage employees, how to bootstrap and solve a problem you don’t know the answer to. It taught me about an industry I knew nothing about,” he said.

The teams' ideas will be evaluated by 86 judges.

“These are judges that are entrepreneurs, these are start-up guys that have done entrepreneurial measures in the past, they are alumni of UNC, they are friends of UNC," Hergert said.

He said the growth in participation is the reason the challenge moved from Top of The Hill to The Blue Zone this year. 

“It really gives us a cool space, everything about that space is UNC. And the fact the game is on at the end in The Blue Zone creates a cool buzz environment,” he said.

The change in venue also gives more room for growth in the future.

Kitchen said he is excited for the event and all the ventures that will be presented.

“I think this one of the best events that we hold at Carolina. There is so much excitement for entrepreneurship.”

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