Pitch Night! N-house 16/17 Sem 1

Yaaaas!! It was Pitch Night! at N-house this Wicked Wednesday past, the final outward-facing N-house event for the semester. One of two flagship events at N-house (the other being Open House), Pitch Night @ N-house is an opportunity for innovative and enthusiastic individuals to pitch their ideas to a panel of seasoned judges, as well as to a similarly innovative-minded individuals within NUS’ entrepreneurial community, in return for valuable feedback and validation. This time round, something even more valuable was in store for the winner — direct access to the Start-up Validation Programme (SVP), and to be shortlisted for the $10k-worth Innovation and Entrepreneurship Practicum Award.

Each team had 5 minutes to present their case, and 3 minutes to answer questions.

9 teams competed, 3 judges contemplated, and 1 team won. Let’s get straight to what went down.

Thinking, judging, contemplating. From (L) to (R), Wong Sang Wuoh, Associate Director at NUS Enterprise; Joe Rouse, Executive Advisor at NUS Enterprise; and Seah Wei Cong, Assistant Manager at NUS Enterprise Incubator.

We first had Cheng Ai Feng, an alumnus of the NOC Singapore programme, introduce his startup. Called Envilink, Ai Feng’s idea revolves around providing IoT (internet-of-things) solutions to the environmental monitoring landscape.

“Look at the size of my market.” — Cheng Ai Feng

Next up was Marco Beba, introducing Libra, a mobile application that enables virtual reality-enhanced reading experiences.

Libra is looking for feedback and partners, and Marco would love to be contacted at marco.beba@u.nus.edu .

We then had Ho Ren Sen, who introduced LinedUp, a mobile application that lines up travel reservations according to a user’s wishlist.

Linin’ up them common problems faced by Singaporean travellers, was Ren Sen.

Everyone in the audience were then entranced by Sharon Lee of NUS’ Social Work degree course, who passionately shared her idea of helping tertiary students from low-income families to gain flexible part-time employment that’s Made with Love.

If that heart-shared ice-cream didn’t melt your heart, at least the ice-cream would melt.

NanoOptics was up next, with Chion Jet Chun, an NUS alumnus, introducing his patented product: an attachment to an optical microscope that provides an upgrade to its resolution.

“Doesn’t take a microscope to see that window of opportunity right there” — did Jet Chun not say.

Next to step to the fore was Alan Lin, a NOC Shanghai alumnus, and certified property agent, introducing his property-related startup, PropertyAsiaDirect.

“Indeed, why would property agents choose us?” — here we see Alan in a bid to convince judges of the utility of his idea.

Logan, too tall for the stage (the ceiling in N-house is rather low), then stepped in to the arena to introduce Smartr, a mobile application for matching tutees with tutors in college.

Here we see on Logan’s slide an accurate depiction of a typical college student’s life.

Bing Yang, Farhan, and Edmond, all of whom are currently on the NOC Singapore programme, were next. Their idea was called Spence, a mobile payment solution that promises to be easy to use — so easy, they plan to first introduce it to hawker stall owners in Singapore.

“Problem, problem problem. Here’s our solution.”

Last, but not least as the cliche goes, was Karthik, a PhD student in NUS’ Biological Science course. He and his team, Varnak, dream of a faster, cheaper, and more accurate method of constructing medical models for surgical planning and medical education through the wonder that is 3-D printing.

On a mission: Karthik passionately presenting his case, while his teammate looks on.

The winner: NanoOptics.

Congratulations, Jet Chun and team!

But on a day of entrepeurial sharing, everyone was a winner.

Appreciation for the judges’ time was given, and the pitching space was then used for the crowd to mingle. It had been an intense session of competitive pitching, in a week where the academic week was just, if not more, intense. (It’s week 11, buddies).

And that, was the last public event organized by N-house for the semester 16/17, 1.

Work hard, play hard, chase that rainbow. Cya all next semester.