Four engineering teams reach Tiger Cage student business pitch semifinals

Engineering students have won six of the first seven Tiger Cage Student Business Pitch Competitions. It should be no surprise the eighth rendition of Auburn University's premier entrepreneurship event has an engineering flavor once again.

Four of eight semifinal teams are represented by Auburn engineers who will compete Feb. 25 for a spot in the March 25 final round where $54,000 in early-stage startup capital is up for grabs. Engineering students/teams advancing through the Jan. 28 quarterfinals and into the semifinals include:

* Harrison Hall, industrial and systems engineering (GoReceipt): A digital receipt hardware/app product that allows the customer to tap their phone onto a platform at the point-of-sale, receive a digitized receipt, and save it onto an app on their cell phone. Hall is teaming with finance and supply chain management major Will Murphy.

* Emmett Deen, computer science and software engineering (IGNTE): A platform that provides organizations a means of showing their sponsor's advertisements on Twitch. He is teaming with Jacob Cordero, a business administration major.

* Zakariya Veasy, computer science and software engineering(OMNIS): A crowdsource banking platform where individuals earn money passively and actively through community and peer-to-peer short-term, micro-loans where others can borrow to meet immediate needs.

* Jesse Stewart, Brooke Hopton-Jones, and Sydney Pham, computer science and software engineering (Toft by 2153): A game development studio specializing in next-generation, cross-platform, multi-player games.

Four other teams with students representing the Harbert College of Business and College of Agriculture will also compete.

“Innovation is the heartbeat of every business idea,” said Lou Bifano, Director of the New Venture Accelerator at Auburn University. “Engineering students are innovative, by nature, and possess the skillset necessary to not only imagine creative business ideas, but often have the technological support to develop these ideas.

“But Tiger Cage Business Idea Competition is for all students, and we’ve seen many winning teams made from a combination of academic disciplines, from engineering to business to fashion merchandising. We're blessed at Auburn University to not only have innovative minds, but students who can take ideas, turn them into viable business plans, create financial reports, and still have the skills to pitch these ideas before industry professional judges.”

Engineering students have won the past three Tiger Cage competitions: FlashTract (Ben Conry and Blair Chenault) in 2019, SwiftSku (Mit Patel and Daniel Mazur) in 2020, and Vulcan Line Tools (Zac Young) in 2021.

Launched in 2015 and sponsored by the Raymond J. Harbert College of Business, the Tiger Cage provides entrepreneurial-minded students with the opportunity for mentorship and training through much of the academic year, culminating with live pitch competitions before industry professional judges, including Kevin Harrington of television’s “Shark Tank” in 2015.