Portland Community College | Portland, Oregon

Shark Tank-like Entrepreneurs’ Pitch Fest set to dazzle this Friday at Southeast Campus

Photos and Story by Chabre Vickers

The Portland Community College Management and Supervisory Development Program has announced the very first “PCC Entrepreneurs’ Pitch Fest” at the Southeast Campus Community Hall from 12:30-3:30 p.m., Friday, Dec. 8.

Nine PCC Student teams will pitch their new product, business concept or invention idea to compete for cash, mentoring, and the opportunity to represent PCC in the 2018 InventOR competition. Students will have five minutes to present their idea, and a panel of judges from the local entrepreneur community will choose two winning teams. Each team will be awarded a $2,500 development grant to build a prototype, as well as mentoring from Portland State University’s Center for Entrepreneurship, and the opportunity to compete for up to $10,000 in funding from InventOR.

While space is limited, the community is invited to register for a free ticket and parking pass to attend.  Anyone interested in learning more can email faculty Carolina Selva, at carolina.selva@pcc.edu.

Anyone interested in attending can register here: https://entrepreneurpitchfest-pcc.eventbrite.com

The recently launched Entrepreneurship concentration at Southeast Campus under the Management and Supervisory Development Program is already seeing a robust engagement across the college. The new PCC course titled “Introduction to Entrepreneurship” (BA 150) was offered for the first time in 2016 at Southeast.  In this class, students explore what’s needed to take an idea to a finished product or startup business, including what it takes to be an entrepreneur and how to create a business concept and business model canvas. During the 2018 winter term, the course will be offered online and in-person at Southeast, Cascade and Sylvania campuses, and at the Rock Creek Campus this spring.