Lam Family College of Business & Computer Science Pitch Contest
The Lam Family College of Business (LFCoB) is proud to collaborate with the San Francisco State University chapter of the Association for Computer Machinery (ACM) to host the annual Computer Science Pitch Competition.
Past CS Pitch Contest Winners
- First Place: AlignAI - Westly Cho and Natalie Yam
- Second Place: FreshLens - Junghyun Song, Jinwon Choi, and Ronald Tieu
- Third Place: AccoAI - Alex Loughry
- First Place - Andy Poon, Nagamatsu Mai, Eric Su, Iwano Yoshimasa
- Second Place - Jijeong Lee, Marie Shimizu
- Third Place - Sravani Viswanadha, Jean-Michael Arraki, Chantal Gerwe
- Fan Favorite - Raul Cardenas, Tu Le, Zubair Shaik, Ram Francis
The top three pitches win cash prizes!
This is a great opportunity for Computer Science students to hear feedback about their innovative ideas from industry experts and faculty. Students can apply for the University-wide Innovation Pitch Competition with the same idea. We welcome any stage of entrepreneurial ideas from the ideation phase to those that are ready for angels and seed investments.
- First place: $500
- Second place: $300
- Third place: $200
Important Dates and Deadlines:
- Applications Close: March 18, 2024
- Acceptance Notification: March 20, 2024
- Pitch Contest Day: March 22, 2024
Event Location
The pitch competition will be held in person at the Innovation Hub (HUM125).
To Enter the Pitch Contest
- Submit your application and pitch deck HERE.
- Applications will be reviewed, and finalists will be notified through email.
- Selected applicants are invited to present live in front of the judges panel.
- Winners will be announced after judges deliberation on competition day.
Read the full terms and conditions for your application.
Entry Requirements
- At least one of the cofounders and the presenter must be a student currently enrolled, at least part-time, as a Computer Science major, minor or graduate student within the College of Science and Engineering at San Francisco State.
- Prototypes are preferred but not required.
- Teams are limited to between 2 and 6 students.
Judging
The preliminary round of judging focuses on finding a compelling and convincing innovation or entrepreneurial story, based on a five (5) minute live pitch, followed by a question/answer session with the judges.
The most successful entries typically demonstrate:
A clear value proposition for a clearly defined target market.
Who is the prototypical consumer of your innovation, and why would they pay for your solution? What problem of theirs does your innovation solve? What need(s) does your innovation fulfill?
A clear explanation of how you are able to solve the consumer’s problem.
How or why does your solution work? What enables your solution to fulfill customer needs better than anything/anyone else out there?
Traction in the marketplace.
Is there a demonstrated product-market fit? Do you have evidence that your idea or prototype is desirable to, adopted by, or sought after by a market?
A well-articulated revenue model.
How does this innovation generate revenue? What recurring revenue streams are created? Who’s paying, and how are they paying for your offering?
A founding team that is set up for success.
Does the founding team have the right expertise to execute the innovation? Is this something that the founders will continue to pursue after graduation?
Judges
Professor Sameer Verma is the Department Chair and Professor of Information Systems at San Francisco State University.
His research focuses on the diffusion and adoption of innovative technologies. He is currently working on several academic research projects which include the diffusion of open source software, sustainable IT in rural and remote environments, and the impact of offline networks.
In addition to his academic work, Professor Verma has worked with companies in consulting capacity in the areas of content analysis, management and delivery.
Professor Verma is on the Board of Directors of the Drupal Association. He also serves on the advisory boards of WiRED International, The Center for Ethical and Sustainable Business (CESB) at SF State, some San Francisco Bay Area technology companies. He is also the founder of the Commons Initiative at SF State, the One Laptop per Child San Francisco community, the One Laptop per Child Jamaica community and an institutional partner at the Center of Excellence, University of the West Indies, Jamaica.
Dr. Arno Puder is a Professor and Chair of the Department of Computer Science at the San Francisco State University.
Prior to joining SF State, he worked for Deutsche Telekom AG and AT&T Labs Research. As department chair, he promotes equitable and diverse pedagogy through socially responsible computing.
Dr. Puder published two books as well as over 60 peer reviewed conference and journal papers. His research interests include Embedded Systems, Mobile Platforms, IoT and Reinforcement Learning. His collaborators include Mozilla Research, Microsoft Research, and SAP and he served as an expert witness in a class action suit against prominent mobile app developers.
He is the founder and co-founder of several widely used Open Source projects. Dr. Puder has a Ph.D. in Computer Science from the Goethe University in Frankfurt, Germany.
Duc Ta studied Math, Computer Science, Business Administration, Entrepreneurship and Innovation, and Finance at San Francisco State University, the University of California Berkeley, and the University of San Francisco. He worked for for-profit and non-profit organizations in Vietnam and the United States. He currently teaches Computer Science at San Francisco State University and manages private practices. In his free time, he enjoys taking his children to sports and participating in community activities with them and his students