8th Annual Big Idea Competition
The 8th Annual Big Idea Pitch Competition was a rousing success! Four teams brought their A-game to the Dyer Center and pitched innovative ideas to a panel of judges and a crowd of over 60 attendees in person and even more streaming online. Each team presented with passion, stories, data, and dedication.
While there were 11 initial submissions to participate in the competition, four groups made it to the final round and pitch night. These teams were Locava, Flipflap, Karoka, and UPDining.
Locava, consisting of Judson Dunne ’27, Will Gottfried ’27, and Ethan Melgar ’27, took home first place and a $1500 cash prize for their fun and exciting travel-centric social media app.
Said Judson, “Preparing for the Big Idea Pitch Competition really pushed us to return to the core of our idea and why we started Locava in the first place—exploring and discovering cool spots with your friends. It gave us a chance to reflect, refine, and come out with a clearer understanding of our mission and what makes our platform meaningful.”
Flipflap, the fantasy sports app focused on community input on trades, took home both second place ($1000) and the audience choice award ($200). Team members Larry Shore ’25 and Lizzy Quilty ’25 had a great experience in the competition:
“Participating in the Big Idea Competition was one of the most rewarding experiences of our four years at Lafayette. In just a few weeks, we learned what it means to be entrepreneurs—from constructing an initial idea to building a compelling pitch deck,” reflected Lizzy. “We’re deeply grateful for the support and mentorship of the Dyer Center and our alumni advisor, Jonathan Maschio ’17, both of whom were instrumental to our growth throughout the process.”
Third place went to Karoka, consisting of teammates Landy Rakotoarison ’26 and Malala Rasoamanana ’28. Karoka is a fun online game designed to teach players about coding and programming, and was inspired by Landy’s experience growing up in Madagascar. They too found the Big Idea Pitch Competition to be gratifying.
Said Landy, “At the beginning it was very stressful, when people started to arrive, but when our first words came out and we started the pitch it got better! Seeing people’s faces while pitching as well as the judges’ questions following the pitch were great. Overall, the way I worked with Malala went very well; it went as good as the way we prepared it, and we were proud of ourselves!”
The final team was UPDining, comprised of Tuna Akin ’27 and Efe Çivisöken ’28. Their idea was to optimize the student dining experience by providing a live stream feed of the dining halls’ food offerings that could be viewed from the web or a phone. In addition to allowing students to make better choices, this would lead to a cutting down of food waste and consequent financial savings for the food provider.
We’d like to extend our gratitude to this year’s judges, Fran Waller (Lehigh Valley Angels), Steve Delahunty ’87, and Eric Schwartz, for their enthusiastic participation. Additionally, we’d like to thank our alumni mentors, Latham Pali ‘98, Angele Coxe ‘03, Jonathan Maschio ‘17, and Quinn Revere ‘17, for supporting and guiding the teams as they prepared their pitches.