Students test their skills at ECE Shark Tank

How are students going to hold their own faced with Shark Tank style pitch presentations? Well, that's the point of college isn't it? Jump in with both feet.

On Friday, April 15 from 3 to 5 p.m. they will find out at Dreese Lab Room 260. It's what the ECE 5078 class Empowering the Entrepreneurial Engineer platform is all about.

Judges Cheryl Turnbull, senior director of the Keenan Center for Entrepreneurship; Bill Baumel, a Silicon Valley and Midwest venture capitalist; plus Wayne Embree, an executive vice president of Rev1 Ventures, make up the panel.

The plan: student teams develop a product strategy for the market and pitch their new technology ventures to the panel. They win cash prizes provided by the ECE Entrepreneurship Fund if they succeed.

Student Venture Teams include:

1. Fitology, led by Colin Jordon, Ethan Blankemeyer, and Tommy Tauer. They are coached by Helen Patton, a leading cyber security expert from Cisco Systems.

2. Auto Brain, led by Hanxiang Niu and Yinxuan Zhu, coached by Ramesh Krishnamurth, formerly of Intel.

3. RYO Inc., led by Tristan Langley, Priyanka Mungale, and Arti Vedula, who are coached by Mike Pekar of Raytheon.

4. Luminate Health, led by Brooks Nieberding, Joshua Smith and Dean Ogle. They are coached by Scott Yano of Lakeshore Cryotronics.

5. Mushroom Visual Mind (MVM), led by Bokai Guan, Chenlong Chen, and Guangyu Chang. Their coach is Fred Lancia of Broadcom.

Learn about each of these student company pitches and more by joining in-person or online.