Pitch Dingman Competition 2022 — Back on the Big Stage!

After two years of virtual competitions, the Dingman Center for Entrepreneurship team is excited to bring back Pitch Dingman Competition in a live format. “Our team has successfully held the competition over various virtual event platforms in recent years, but nothing compares to the energy of a live event,” said Haley Mates ’14, events & marketing manager at the Dingman Center. Pending any further Covid precautions, the team plans to hold the event this year on Tuesday, April 26, 2022, at Stamp Grand Ballroom, as in years past.

This year, the Shark Tank-style competition will also be offering more prize money to student entrepreneurs than ever before. Thanks to increased donations from David, MBA ’05, and Robyn Quattrone, among other sponsors, the Dingman Center will be able to distribute over $75,000 in non-dilutive seed funding across three different competition tracks. The grand prize winners from the David and Robyn Quattrone Venture Track, for tech or tech-enabled ventures, and the Main Street Track, for small businesses with less of a focus on scale, will win $30,000 and $20,000 in cash respectively.

Last year, Blimp Logistics (Camilo Melnyk ’21, Spencer Yaculak ’23) , a drone delivery company, and Fancy and Spicy (Brin Xu, PhD ’22), a Chinese Sichuan culinary education platform, took home the top two prizes. North Star Creations (Mathew Parsons, MBA ’22) an inclusive and educational toy company, won the top prize in the ideation style Fearless Ideas Track.

For those student entrepreneurs hoping to win big at the 2022 competition, make sure to submit your application before the February 4 deadline. The application for all three tracks is open now, including the Fearless Ideas Track, for students interested in entrepreneurship that haven’t yet begun executing on a venture idea. The competition is open to all current University of Maryland undergraduate and graduate students from any college or major, as well as any students that graduated in winter 2021.

“Since 2016, we’ve gathered that 73% of finalists who competed in Pitch Dingman Competition are still operating their businesses”, says Lottie Byram, MPH, venture programs manager at the Dingman Center; “We are so excited to see the next great ventures that come out of this year’s competition and go on to accomplish amazing things.”

For more information on Pitch Dingman Competition, including eligibility, a full timeline and a breakdown of prizes, please visit go.umd.edu/pitchdingman.

Questions? Contact the Dingman Center team at rhsmith-dingman@umd.edu.