Radius Indiana Announces Winners of Regional Pitch Competition

Bedford, Ind. (Dec. 13, 2019) — Radius Indiana is proud to announce the winners of this year’s final pitch competition held at WestGate Academy Dec. 6. The contest drew participants from multiple Radius Indiana counties as well as entrepreneurs from across the state.

Winners of the High School Competition:

• First Place | Peyton Davis of Greene County, Crane Connect
• Second Place | Michael Claycamp of Jackson County, Aquapon
• Third Place | Lara Santiago of Daviess County, Lion’sMane

Winners of the Adult Competition:

• First Place | Aaron Schnur of Vanderburgh County, Endless Eyewear
• Second Place | Nickey Ramsey of Tippecanoe County, Junobie
• Third Place | Geng Wang of Monroe County, Civic Champs

Participants were given three minutes to present startup ideas, products or business plans and then received useful feedback and advice from a panel of judges. Winners of the student and adult competitions each received a check for $1,000 for first place, $600 for second and $400 for third.

“I think the pitch competition was a great way to get students and the community to be alert about problems in our area and then come up with creative ways to solve them. For students especially, it’s a great way to learn business skills, as well as crucial general skills that they’ll be using later in life,” said Davis, winner of the high school competition with his pitch for Crane Connect, an easy-to-use website that creates connections between contractors and highly qualified employees. 

Schnur, who won the adult competition to launch the website for his company, Endless Eyewear, a rental subscription for designer eyewear said, “This experience and prize money will be a big help in launching Endless Eyewear early in 2020. It will go toward hiring the expertise to finish the website and purchase initial inventory. In addition, the experience and feedback from the judges and other participants is invaluable as I meet with investors and fine-tune my business plan.”

The judges for the adult competition were Landon Young from Elevate Ventures, Steve Bryant from Ivy Tech and Sawyer Sparks from Soy-Yer Dough; the high school competition was judged by Joyce Poling from Ivy Tech, Megan Cox from Genie Supply and Terri Brown from the Small Business Development Center. Each judge came into the competition with previous pitch competition judging experience.

“I want to thank all of our participants and judges for making our pitch competition a success. We are encouraged by the range of ideas and interest from within our region as well as from other areas of the state,” said Radius Indiana President and CEO Jeff Quyle. “We know that cultivating new business ideas and supporting entrepreneurs is vitally important to strengthening our region and small business growth.”

Based on the interest and participation in this year’s events, Radius Indiana plans to host additional competitions in 2020.

###

ABOUT RADIUS INDIANA: Radius Indiana is a regional economic development partnership representing eight counties in Southern Indiana: Crawford, Daviess, Dubois, Greene, Lawrence, Martin, Orange, and Washington. Formed in 2009, Radius Indiana also serves as a point of contact in Indiana for Naval Support Activity Crane and leads regional collaboration by leveraging the diverse assets of Southwest Central Indiana to drive attraction, retention and expansion of business, thereby increasing employment and investment opportunities and quality of life within the region.