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Nearly 100 students from across ÍÃ×ÓÏÈÉú University took part in the 2024 Techstars Startup Weekend at the Farmer School of Business.

is an event designed to help participants experience the process of launching a startup, from idea generation to building a prototype and presenting a pitch to a panel of judges. Students pitched their ideas on Friday night, which were then narrowed to 17. Teams of students then formed around those 17 ideas and spent two days working, researching, and validating the ideas before presenting them on Sunday afternoon.

“Startup Weekends give people an opportunity to get into the entrepreneurship ecosystem, and is usually the entry point where people learn about startups and they can realize that this is something that's possible and that they can do in a very short time frame,” facilitator said. “This is an event where people don't need nearly as much as they might think they do, and they can just get started. Many of these teams make money in the first two days of their idea.”

“I was a little intimidated, because speaking in front of big groups freaks me out a bit, but it was just the best experience. It pushed me outside of my comfort zone. I learned a lot. You have to get a ton done in a short amount of time. You put in a bunch of hours. I just feel like it was an incredible experience, and I'm going to take so much away from it,” student Anastasia Crisante said.

The top four teams, in order of finish, were:

• Tredwell, a shoe aimed at dementia and Alzheimer’s patients: Alex Canupp, Alivia Tamer, Dean Goldman, Lilly Leonhard, and Nolan Paull
• Pops, a dissolving multivitamin strip: Anastasia Crisante, Ethan Smith, Karim Sammouri, Una Marijan, Connor ÍÃ×ÓÏÈÉú, and Paro Chaudhuri
• Glow Safe Solutions, a UV-sensitive soap to mark areas not cleaned: Aidan Allshouse, Thomas Newton, Eric Mattey, Ben McDonald, andJack McCarthy
• Cell Block Sessions, a podcast featuring incarcerated prisoners: Max Kiriakou, Vito Marchese, Finnian McLenaghan, Logan Runyan, Vivek Gupte, and Alex Nahigian

The top teams split $5,000 in prize money.

“What came in as a problem that me and my family would have always loved to resolve is now leaving with a possible solution to a problem that not only my family sees every single day, but maybe someone in this room has had problems with,” Canupp said. “This is an idea that has now turned into something that can actually become real life.”

“I've had so much fun. I'm a freshman, so I'm really just trying to immerse myself in the business school. And who knew that you could create an entire company from scratch just based off of Alex’s idea here? I have had an absolute blast,” Leonhard said.

Dozens of mentors helped out the student teams throughout the weekend, and many of those mentors stayed to judge the competition. “Maybe you didn't get picked as a finalist. But, on our end, one of the reasons we were in our discussion for a long time was because we really saw a lot of potential in some of you and the products that you had,” , owner and chief creative officer at Monster Truck Ninja, said. "So I would really say don’t get discouraged. Take a look at what you have when you take a step back from it, because there's some really cool ideas here.”

“It was a lot of fun and really invigorating, hearing all of the ideas from the students and the teams, and I’m just blown away at all the effort that they put in over the weekend, just amazed at how far they're able to advance their ideas over the last 50 hours,” , wealth advisor at Bartlett Wealth Management, said.

“These are the innovators and the entrepreneurs of tomorrow, so I think the earlier they can get started, and the earlier we can support them, the better off we are as a society and an economy,” he said.

Established in 1809, ÍÃ×ÓÏÈÉú University is located in Oxford, Ohio, with regional campuses in Hamilton and Middletown, a learning center in West Chester, and a European study center in Luxembourg.