Katherine Olives
As many of you may remember, we postponed our annual Demo Day & Final Pitch (which normally happen in May) to give our students more time to develop their ideas in the midst of uncertainty and change surrounding the pandemic. Last week, many of you voted for your favorite startups during a virtual Demo Day the Pre app, and also attended our virtual Final Pitch where you heard from startups competing in our four categories for top prizes. In all, CCNY startups collected close to $150,000 in prizes, which they'll use to further develop their businesses. We hope to share more news about these resilient teams in the future, but for now, here are the results of the 2020 Demo Day & Final Pitch:
the Zahn Social Impact Prize:
The 1st place prize of $25,000 was awarded to Blue Generation, an environmental fitness app. Blue Generation also took home the Audience Choice Award for this category, decided at Demo Day.
The 2nd place prize of $5,000 was awarded to Earthly Beings, a team developing skin care products to those with eczema.
the Standard Chartered Women+Tech4NYC Prize:
The 1st place prize of $25,000 was awarded to The Bella Zoia Project, a marketing and promotion tool for nonprofits.
The 2nd place prize of $5,000 went to Parkbreezy, a community-based parking app geared towards drivers who are English language learners. Parkbreezy also took home the Audience Choice Award.
Honorable mention in this category was our third team, Healistic, youth-focused mental health nonprofit for the South Asian community.
the Zahn Technology Prize:
The 1st place prize of $25,000 went to Dype, an app that authenticates streetwear.
The $5,000 2nd place prize went to Foodini, an app that serves as a database for all foods to help you make “fearless food decisions.” Foodini also won the Audience Choice Award.
the Kaylie Prize for Hardware Devices:
The $50,000 1st place prize was awarded to Trias, a portable pre-diagnostic tool for high cholesterol. They also won the Audience Choice Award.
IASSER, a product aiming to reduce the amount of car accidents, won the $5,000 2nd place prize in this category.
We couldn't have had a successful Final Pitch without the help of our judging panel, including:
Zahn Social Impact Track Judges
Esmeralda Herrera, Director of Programs and Community Relations, Communitas America
Andrew Rich, Dean, Colin Powell School for Civic and Global Leadership at The City College of New York
Peter Zahn, CEO, Moxie Foundation
Standard Chartered Women+Tech4NYC Track Judges
Matthew Washington, Deputy Borough President, Manhattan Borough Presidents Office
Jason Wong, Treasurer and VP-IR, Tiffany & Co
Jarlyne Batista Monzon, Community Manager, Hynes Institute for Entrepreneurship & Innovation, Iona College
Zahn Tech Track Judges
Marc Escapa, Cofounder, Noken
Desiree Frieson, Assistant Director, NYDesigns
Weeks Mensah, Cofounder & CEO at Sourcediv, Inc.
Kaylie Hardware Track Judges
Haytham Elhawary, Cofounder, Kinetic
Faith Jaskowiak, Director of Marketing & Partnerships, CUNY Startups
Brian Wilson, CEO, Duro UAS
And of course, we'd like to say a big thank you to our major sponsors, the Kaylie family, Standard Chartered Bank, and The Moxie Foundation for their donations which ensure CCNY student entrepreneurs are able to advance their innovations and pursue their dreams.