Tech Prep’s First E1 BUILD Pitch Competition

Story by Jerell King and Dionel Grice. Photo from http://www.atelierhob.com

On, Wednesday November 17, 2016, Tech Prep’s BUILD program launched its first idea pitch competition. All BUILD participants were dressed in their business suits and dresses ready to present their ideas. All BUILD mentors came out to support us and judges were there to assess our pitches. But this couldn’t have happened without the support and guidance of our BUILD Teacher, Melody Wilson. The idea pitch competition was held at Friendship Tech Prep Academy.

Every student was well-prepared to pitch the innovative ideas they came up with because they practiced for the competition days before. The idea pitch competition consisted of student pairs presenting their ideas to the judges, with brief intermissions in between. Every team did very well on pitching their ideas to the judges. All of the judges and mentors were very impressed by the quality of the pitches we produced, even though this is Tech Prep’s first year with BUILD.

Even though every pitch was really well put together, only two pitches were chosen to be the winners. The two ideas that won included my team’s idea “The Snack Jack”, a cool snack dispenser and Sponge Gloves, a multipurpose cleaning tool. Some of the other ideas included the Two-Way Backpack, The Backpack-Organizer, Wireless-Blow-Dryer and Elevator-Shoes. All builders who presented will be very successful with future ideas. We will have future pitch competitions and continue to develop new ideas.

Jerell King is a 9th grader and Dionel Grice is an 8th grader at Friendship Tech Prep Academy.