Forbes Entrepreneurial Competition Semifinal Winners Announced
On May 9, the 2024 Forbes Entrepreneurial Competition held its semifinals via Zoom. Since 1989, the Forbes Entrepreneurial Competition has sought to bring together student entrepreneurial teams, and give them the opportunity to pitch their ideas for prize money to invest in their respective businesses. Each team went through an extensive application process, tasked with submitting a business idea that included an overview of their company, their target market, their value proposition, and a market analysis.
Each team had 6 minutes to pitch their business idea, and 8 minutes to answer questions from a panel of judges. The judges were; Ibrahim Mohammad, a lecturer in mechanical engineering at UR and co-founder of Meliora Homes; Duncan Moore, a professor of Optical Engineering and Business Administration, and former Vice Provost of Entrepreneurship at UR; and Mark Rider, the VanArsdale Chair of Entrepreneurship at SUNY Geneseo and CEO of Accent Growth.
In first place came Formly, with members Tamuda Chimhanda ‘26, Samuel Henderson ‘25, Geneva Hinkson ‘24 (T5), and Nathaniel Angafor ‘25. In second place came FoodieBox, with members Lam Nguyen ‘24, Angelica Reyfer ‘25, Kevin Tusiime ‘24, and Rebecca Zapiach ‘24. In third place came HeartfulAI, with members Krish Jain ‘26, Aishi Roychoudhury ‘26, Sophia Kaganda ‘24, and Siddharth Narsipur ‘26. A huge thank you to the judges for their time and a huge congratulations to the winning teams!