bdpatoday | Baltimore Pitch Competition team captures $10K regional prize

WASHINGTON—Testify Software Solutions won $10,000 as a finalist in another round of pitch competitions designed to encourage youth entrepreneurship across emerging software-defined ecosystems.

Organized by Mark Greenberg and Marcus Noel, The World Series of Entrepreneurship™ (#WSE2017) Regional Pitch Competition series is aimed at giving students an extracurricular outlet to develop their ideas, challenge their comfort zones, and learn along a fun, empowering journey. Their mission is to encourage high school students to take a leap with them—inviting them to participate in the ultimate hands-on after-school activity where students get to come up with their own businesses or product ideas, make it come to life with guidance from industry mentors, and then show off their venture in a pitch competition with their peers.

Femi Adebogun, Zack Tasker, Druvesh Patel, and Paras Shah are Testify‘s Franklin High School co-founders. Testify is an education technology (EdTEch) startup built around their MindMap app. For Adebogun (top/cover photo), the WSE2017 regional high school pitch competition was not his team’s first rodeo. According to Baltimore County Public Schools (BCPS) Spotlight, last December they participated in the Venture D.C. Pitch Competition here in Washington, beating six local startups with their app idea, pitch, and execution. Furthermore, they have been asked to talk about Testify at colleges and universities in the United States and Canada on several occasions. Nonetheless, regardless of what they have achieved thus far, Testify‘s co-founders still hope to achieve and earn more.

BDPA’s high school coding competition (HSCC) students from Washington, D.C. (BDPA-DC) also participated in WSE2017 events. Team leader Ms. Indigo Emanuel (photo) introduced her team and launched their pitch.

Philadelphia, PA and the District of Columbia served as WSE2017 host cities. Washington’s Inclusive Innovation Incubator [In3] hosted one of the regional pitch competitions at Howard University.