Tufts Entrepreneurs Give Their Perfect Pitch

For six teams of aspiring Tufts entrepreneurs, over two months of hard work in the summer heat culminated in the Tufts Venture Accelerator 2022 Demo Day.

This article originally appeared on the Tufts Gordon Institute website on August 24th, 2022. See it here.

Mia Palomba, A25 of MALFLORA studio presents at Demo Day 2022.

Mia Palomba, A25, of MALFLORA studio presents at Demo Day 2022.

Tufts Venture Accelerator is a summer-long program that provides structure, accountability, educational experiences, and more to help entrepreneurs make rapid progress on their ventures. This year, six teams of Tufts students and alumni dedicated their summers to developing startups that identify important problems, produce effective solutions, and deploy those solutions with a sustainable execution.

While these teams devoted countless hours towards furthering their ventures, they had just five minutes to pitch their ideas to Tufts faculty, staff, their fellow entrepreneurs, and potential business connections at Demo Day on August 18. The challenge of distilling their hard work and big ideas into a short “demo” is the best practice for honing their presentation and pitching skills as they look toward securing funding from investors or buy-in from advisors and employees.

Meet the Tufts Venture Accelerator 2022 Cohort

Baak Network

A virtual mentoring network for young women from high school and universities in Bangladesh to connect with female mentors globally.

Baak Network pitches to the Demo Day audience remotely.

Baak Network pitches to the Demo Day audience remotely. In the first three months since the launch of its first mentee cohort, Baak provided over 1,000 hours of learning to young women. (Photo: Glenn Kulbako)

Blesser Breakers

Teaching “sugar daddy awareness” to middle school girls in Zambia to reduce unwanted teen pregnancies and HIV infections.

Daniel Kibet, F23, (right) and Ashira Pelt, F23, (left) pitch the important mission of Blesser Breakers.

Daniel Kibet, F23, (right) and Ashira Pelt, F23, (left) pitch the important mission of Blesser Breakers. Blesser Breakers received a 2021 D-Prize for their simple but effective “sugar daddy awareness” training program. (Photo: Glenn Kulbako)

MALFLORA studio

Through feature films, social media posts, and nourishing messaging, MALFLORA studio creates a community that strives to tell stories of strength, empowerment, love, and freedom for Latina/e womxn.

From left: Paloma Velasco, A23, and Mia Palomba, A25. MALFLORA studio combats damaging stereotypes of the Latina/e population in the United States through empowering storytelling and weekly animations. (Photo: Glenn Kulbako)

Prosal

Prosal is reimagining how businesses hire other businesses, starting with how they connect.

From left: Alfredo Ramirez, F22, Nick Lopez, Nyle Malik. The Prosal team celebrates after their demo. Prosal offers a modern solution to RFPs, summarizing the complex details of an RFP into an easy-to-read card. (Photo: Glenn Kulbako)

Scope Tennis

The first fantasy tennis platform run on blockchain.

From left: Maximilian Stehling and Laurent Isnard, A22. Scope Tennis combines elements of Web 3.0 with existing fantasy sports models to revolutionize fan interaction and engagement with players on tour. (Photo: Glenn Kulbako)

Tessera Intelligence

Tessera Intelligence utilizes advanced AI to remove weather anomalies and enhance sensor performance, extending the range of what millions of cameras can see and detect in the real world.

Shishir Rao, PhD, of Tessera Intelligence pitches the team’s innovative solution to improve the quality of videos for both human and AI consumption.

Shishir Rao, PhD, of Tessera Intelligence pitches the team’s innovative solution to improve the quality of videos for both human and AI consumption. (Photo: Glenn Kulbako)

The Tufts Venture Accelerator 2022 cohort and program mentors.