Spring 2025 Capstone Competition Demonstrates Seniors’ Strategic Entrepreneurship

Dressed to impress and eager to pitch their innovations “Shark Tank”-style, 39 teams of seniors at the Whitman School of Management participated in the Spring 2025 Capstone Business Pitch Competition on April 25. The competition is not only a demonstration of a semester of teamwork on their individual business ideas but also a four-year culmination of their Whitman School education. At the end of the day, it was team Insulitics that took first place with Class of 2025 members Adam Best, Timothy Cavanagh, Evan Kalish, Emily McClure, Ryan Morash and Kathryn Proefrock. Professor of Entrepreneurial Practice Alexandra Kostakis was the team’s mentor and course instructor.

Each semester, the required Capstone course is taught by faculty from Whitman’s Department of Entrepreneurship and Emerging Enterprises (EEE), challenging students from across all majors to come up with a new service, product or business concept that could be realistically executed and include a novel approach to creating economic value. Each idea must be scalable and able to achieve $3 million in growth revenue within the first five years, as well as investments from outside sources that exceed $100,000.

Alumni entrepreneurs, faculty and other business professionals judged the teams in small groups at the start of the day. Later in the afternoon, teams gathered in the K.G. Tan Auditorium in the National Veteran’s Resource Center on campus to find out if they had been selected to continue in the competition.

The top 10 teams were announced one-by-one, as a representative from each winning group quickly took the stage to give a 3-minute elevator pitch to the final round judges, Barbara Ashkin ’74 (A&S) ’77 M.S, former vice president and chief financial officer, CXtec; David Ayoub, partner, Bowers & Company; Blake Brossman ’98 (VPA), founder, PetCareRx; Darren Mungkhalodom ’19 M.S., owner, Fresh Coat Painters of Rochester; and Rickey Brown ’06, principal consultant, Diversity-NY LLC.

Then, students watched the clock as the judges went behind closed doors to determine the winners of the Capstone competition based on their own impressions, the teams’ written business plans and online audience voting, which drew more than 700 votes. After deliberating, the judges came back with the following results:

First place winner Insulitics took the top prize for its innovation to “empower better diabetes management.” Kalish told the story of his own Type 1 diabetes diagnosis in 2019, which was the impetus for technology that uploads key diabetic health metrics to Apple Health or other third-party services using an AI-operated dashboard. The innovation also provides a chatbot that users can utilize for specific monitoring, for example, if a person wants to have sugar levels monitored during a 3-mile run.

“This product idea came from my own struggles with diabetes management over the past five-and-a-half years,” says Kalish, who is a finance and business analytics major with minors in public health and economics. “And, it’s really cool to be able to bring this product to life and have our team be recognized for all the hard work that we’ve put in together this semester.”

ThermaSight took second place with Class of 2025 members Emma Daly, Alice Dang, Gianna Franco, Nathan Seidel and Seb Talib. Professor of Entrepreneurial Practice Ken Walsleben was the team’s mentor and course instructor. The ideation behind their product, HeatVision 1.0, is “protecting our protectors one helmet at a time” by creating a specialized helmet that allows firefighters significantly greater visibility when battling smoke and fire. This specialized helmet has an innovative, built-in infrared camera and a two-way communications system connected to an outside command center that can live stream to other responders, helping to see more and increasing the ability to save the lives of individuals and firefighters.

Third place was awarded to TotPack with team members Class of 2025 Avva Boroujerdi, Olivia Browning, Rohan Fotedar and Eric Lum. EEE Adjunct Instructor Marie Adornato was the team’s mentor and course instructor. This “portable parenting partner” is an all-in-one diaper bag targeting parents of young children who want to overcome the obstacles of being on the go with their babies using features like UPC sterilization, an expandable changing table, and a built in USB plug for bottle warming, as well as a number of optional accessories. The team received a utility provisional patent for the bag’s design in April.

Honorable mentions were awarded to SubSaver, an all-in-one subscription cancellation app, and VeinFlow, a natural, pre-work out beverage to enhance vascularity without stimulants. Members of Class of 2025 team SubSaver were Dominick Greendale, Alec Nagpal, Cole Newman and Eli Solomon, with faculty mentor Adornato, and Class of 2025 members of team VeinFlow were Yulia Ivanova (WSM/MAX), Chaeyun Park, Austin Markofsky, Charlotte Tirone and Sam Steinfink, mentored by Walsleben.

“There is always incredible anticipation in the air on Capstone day, as our seniors demonstrate their entrepreneurial abillities that come from their own gumption, research and teamwork over the past semester,” says Whitman’s Interim Dean Alex McKelvie. “All of the ideas and plans presented in this competition represent the learning and understanding of market needs our students have soaked in, not only in the course of the past 15 weeks, but, more importantly, throughout their four years at the Whitman School. Congratulations to our winners, all our student participants, and our faculty members who have mentored these students throughout this exciting process.”

The Capstone event was coordinated by Associate Professor of Entrepreneurship David Park and Director of Experiential Programs Erin Draper.

Other judges who took part in the business plan and/or first-round portion of the competition included Eric Alderman L’75, Stephen Beckman ’89, Lisa Belodoff ’03 MBA, Stacie Brough ’19 MBA, Christian Butcher, Stacey Cook, Jim D’Agostino ’01 (ECS), Elisabeth Dwyer ’06, Jeff Dwyer, Jeffrey Eades ’85 (A&S), Laura Gates ’84, Patrick Griffin ’20 MBA, Christina Hamilton ’25 MBA, Mei Han ’15 MBA, ’17 M.S. (A&S); Professor Suho Han, Janice Harvey ’73 (Falk), ’85 MBA; Julie Jones ’12, ’23 M.S.; Ron Klein Jr., Professor David Lucas, Kristin Mannion, Patrick Mannion ’80 MBA, Trevor Marsteller ’09, Brandon Mastrangelo, Matt Masur, Professor Arielle Newman, TJ Perkins ’15, Marybeth Riscica, Jeffrey Rogers, Robert Shellish ’72 M.S., Professor Anywhere Sokochi, Lisa Streiff ’98 MBA, Jeff Thompson ’82 (ECS), ’90 M.S. (ECS), ’94 MBA; Nicole Wall ’04 (NEW), Colleen Williams ’03, Dalton Williams ’11 and Joseph Zavaglia.