Announcing the winners of the first-ever Prodigy Finance Pitch Challenge

We're excited to announce the winners of the first-ever Prodigy Finance Pitch Challenge. Congratulations to Conor Smith, Sophie Meralli and Jordi Gonzalez from MIT Sloan School of Management! They'll each take away $4,000 in prize money as well as an additional $4,000 for the team to pursue their winning business idea.

Their idea is a mobile platform, called NEH THIT (meaning New Day) - connecting workers in rural areas of Myanmar with employment opportunities in the country’s cities.

“We’re absolutely thrilled to have been selected as the winners of this year’s Pitch Challenge and look forward to receiving this funding to continue to grow NEH THIT,” said Conor Smith, co-founder of the mobile app and 2018 MBA Candidate at MIT Sloan. 

The Prodigy Finance Pitch Challenge was launched in the spirit of our social mission to make education available to everyone, regardless of their economic or geographical status.

MBA students from top US business schools were invited to submit their business idea in response to the challenge 'Enabling Access to Economic Opportunity’. 

After receiving over 50 entries in the first round, 8 teams were selected to compete in the Final Round which took place in New York City on 13th April 2018. Pitching their business ideas to a panel of esteemed judges were teams representing:

• Duke - Fuqua School of Business
  
• Harvard Business School
  
• UNC - Kenan-Flagler Business School
  
• Georgetown - McDonough School of Business
  
• Michigan - Ross School of Business
  
• MIT - Sloan School of Management
  
• Dartmouth - Tuck School of Management
  
• University of Pennsylvania - The Wharton School
  

Ideas were judged on five unique criteria: analysis of the problem, integrated viewpoint, recommended implementation, solution integration, and presentation. 

We want to thank our panel of judges for taking the time to support these future leaders in the competition:

Final Round Judges:

• Pierre Decote, Chief Risk Officer and Executive Committee Member, Prodigy Finance
  
• Professor Sharon Oster, Professor of Management and Entrepreneurship, Yale School of Management
  
• Zoe Chambers, Venture Capitalist and Investment Team member, Octopus Ventures
  

Semi-final Judges:

• Joel Frisch, Head of Americas, Prodigy Finance
  
• Simon Ward, Chief Technology Officer, Prodigy Finance
  
• Jaime Preusche, McKinsey & Company
  
• Julien Lederman, World Economic Forum
  
• Sheila Sarem, Project Basta
  
• Sura Tilakawardane, Director of Business Development at CNN
  

Take a look at the Pitch Challenge through the eyes of the participants and judges now.