The UTC Gary Rollins College of Business annually presents “Hatch It: The Mocs Big Business Idea Competition,” an opportunity for students to pitch good ideas in exchange for money to start up or support their small business. The competition is sponsored by the Downtown Council of the Chattanooga Area Chamber of Commerce, EPB, the Clarence E. Harris Chair of Excellence in Business and Entrepreneurship, and the Center for Innovation & Entrepreneurship. This year, the live competition, held safely in person and viewable over Zoom on November 4th, yielded a number of ideas integrated with the College of Engineering and Computer Science.
Among the six teams chosen to present ideas were electrical engineering majors Hope Hunnicut and Brooke McCurdy of “Mochi Mama,” which is a developed and delicious option for gluten-free ice cream, and chemical engineering majors Dell Zimmerman and Gitapun Jur, along with their teammate Syed Tareq, a computational engineering major, who together represented S&J NanoChemical, and specifically the initiative to develop a fertilizer line that encourages plant growth while also being less costly to both the environment and the wallet. Along with their selected competitors, they presented their proposals to judges David Paschall of Ntracts Inc., Amy Donahue of River City Company, and Chattanooga area entrepreneur Monty Bruell. To present before the panel was in itself an accomplishment, as to do so students had to successfully apply and prove that their idea had a market and chance for success. Congratulations to all participants on their innovation, and to CECS students particularly on their integration of major skills into entrepreneurship!
For more information on the Hatch It competition: CLICK HERE
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