Torero Entrepreneurship Challenge: A Winner for Student Innovators

It’s one thing to have an invention — it’s another to know how to turn it into successful entrepreneurship. The Torero Entrepreneurship Challenge (TECh) held on April 30th focused deeply on the latter, celebrating innovation, yes, but, more importantly, calibrating the ability to convince others to invest and to grow a business.

 "An entrepreneurial mindset gets you thinking about the value of what you do for whom you’re creating something and how they might use that thing…” says Chell Roberts, Dean of the Shiley-Marcos School of Engineering, in his welcome for the event. “It’s the ability to critically think, to ask questions, to perceive and then to communicate. And that’s what our students have to do when they get through with this challenge.”

On the line was $20,000 in seed money from the Larry Kull Endowed Student Award in Engineering and Entrepreneurship for TECh — celebrating its fifth edition. The five finalist teams offered video pitches of their tech-driven business concepts and then answered follow-up questions.

The  judging panel included Jeff Teza, program director of USD's MS in Innovation Technology and Engineering program, Curtis Chambers '19 (CS), USD Board of Trustees member, Anthony Shao '17 (EE), co-founder + CEO of Darroch Medical and Samantha Pantazopoulos '18 (BBA), co-founder + CEO of Vizer.

The first-place winner of $10,000 was FishEye, created by Dillon Timmer, a senior majoring in computer science.

“FishEye was created to help with the challenge of fisheries when it comes to dealing with quota limitations [on] catching fish,” he says. “Fisheries have electronic monitoring systems to keep track, and with FishEye’s software that uses AI, it can help with counting fish — making sure fish aren’t counted more than once and what type of fish is being counted.”

In fact, all five winners had products with important applicability.

Oink!, for crypto investing using your spare change, took the $5,000 second-place prize. Student team members Zevin Attisha, Thomas Caneday and Andre Suiad also won the $1,000 People’s Choice Award.

Aprendi, helping instructors control how AI is used for learning, received the $3,000 third-place prize. pitched by Patricio Girault, in partnership with Priya Garg.

SafeBallot, which offers a blockchain-based voting platform for secure voting, garnered the $1,000 fourth-place prize. Students Elijah Johnson, Donatella Falcomer, Cordano Russell and Thomas Salazar took home the honor.

CheckRx, comprised of students August Holm and EmilioPerez, helping agents comparing plans for more affordable prescription coverage for customers, also received $1,000 and garnered the fifth-place prize.

Nikhil Yadav, faculty lead for TECh and computer science chair, was encouraged by the growth of all teams. “This is just the beginning,” he says. “The ability to present and to convince is critical in starting your own business and also in working for someone else. There are many great ideas out there, but it’s about if you can understand the financial part, the marketability and how to take it to the finish line.”

Timmer, who had Yadav as a mentor for the event, saw his confidence grow exponentially through participating. “I was given feedback during the competition to focus more on the financial side and now I see better how to do that,” he says. “The prize money will help me work more on FishEye, but the encouragement is really important. You feel like you’re headed in the right direction.”

— By Eric Butterman