San Jacinto College is inviting students with the most innovative business ideas to participate in the first-ever Venture Pitch competition taking place April 10 on the South Campus. Tomorrow is the last day to apply.

Individual students or teams of up to three people, from any discipline, can participate as long as they are in good academic standing.

Participants have 10 minutes to pitch their business idea to the competition judges and two minutes to answer their questions. After additional deliberation, the judges will award the first-place winner with a $700 scholarship while the second and third-place winners receive $500 and $300 scholarships, respectively.

Spearheading the competition is South Campus Business and Technology Department Chair Dr. Roger Watkins and Business Management Professor Kevin Hale.  

“This was an idea created by Dr. Roger Watkins in 2017,” Hale said. “He wrote and received an SSI grant request, and the rest is history.”  

Both Watkins and Hale were motivated to start the competition to showcase San Jac’s entrepreneurship program, but both men noted they ran into problems concerning publicity and garnering student participants.  

“Not only is getting participation difficult, but also getting spectators to attend,” Watkins said.

For the future, Hale said he hopes the competition is successful enough to happen once a semester and possibly expand to the point where each campus hosts its own Venture Pitch.

“We hope the event will continue to grow,” Watkins said, “and invite more outside participants and maybe even some local high schools to attend.”

The Venture Pitch competition takes place April 10 from 1:30 p.m. until 3:30 p.m. in Room 152 of the Academic building-Wing North (S7) on the South Campus. For application information, contact [email protected].