UPEI Catherine Callbeck Centre crowns three students winners of pitch battles

The Catherine Callbeck Centre for Entrepreneurship wrapped up its annual fall Pitch Battles last week with three students taking the top position.

The students, Oluwatobi Oriade, Daniel Odoom, and Demba Cisse (SentiShell), walked away as this year’s Pitch Battles winners after an intense eight-day sprint where teams developed a themed business concept, pitch, and presentation under pressure.

Amy Andrews, Manager of Entrepreneurship, explained that Pitch Battles provides students with a sector-specific prompt, usually kept secret, and gives them two weeks to research, ideate, build, refine, and present a full business pitch. “We do kind of try to keep it top secret until it’s time. And to choose the sector, we look at what the government is currently supporting, and we also look at what supports are available again on PEI or Atlantic Canada,” said Andrews.

Students typically work in interdisciplinary teams or individually and receive access to mentors, workshops, and industry-aligned support through the Centre.

The Catherine Callbeck Centre is still young, only a year and a half old, but its impact is spreading across campus. It runs workshops, mentoring sessions, and entrepreneurship training aimed at empowering students to thrive in any industry. “I think it’s slowly getting there, but I don’t think enough students know about us,” Andrews said. “Most people know what the Panther Pitch is, but I don’t know if they realize we run it. I’m hoping with things like Pitch Battles and making it very clear that we run that… we might have to do that for other events we’re doing.” This year, Andrews said the centre saw a major increase in the overall engagement leading up to the competition. “We had like 20 or 22 students come for the ideation workshop. Last year, I had three.” She explained the workshops were more interactive and intentionally structured for hands-on working time, which helped them take their presentations to the next level.

This year’s edition had 46 registrations, with 39 participants completing the challenge, including 38 UPEI students and one student from Holland College; similar to the 41 participants who completed last fall, 11 of whom were from Holland College. This year’s theme was water, chosen after the centre examined emerging federal and regional funding, local networks, and the relevance of the sector to Atlantic Canada. She added that ocean-tech connections made the water sector especially strong this year: “There’s a lot of funding in that area currently… we leaned on some connections that we had in that space, so that helped us with judges and with mentors.”

Daniel Odoom, one-third of the winning team, is no stranger to the centre. He competed last year and was sure he wasn’t going to participate this year after two out of his four-member team dropped out of the competition two days before the end. “I’ve been involved with it since… literally all of the activities and all of the pitches,” he said. “At the networking event, Tobi said, ‘Daniel, let’s work together.’ I said ‘Sure’. And that’s how it came to be.” Odoom said the mystery behind the theme added excitement rather than nervousness. And their teamwork clicked quickly. “It went smoothly; we all just had that same ambition. When all of us have the same vision, the decision-making is easier.” When their win was announced, Odoom said it was a surreal feeling. “A reward for all of your hard work… at some point, I feel like we knew we were going to win.” Odoom advised future participants to do it because it pushes them out of their comfort zone.“Not just winning the money but the connections, the skills you gain, solving problems in different ways is very helpful.”

Andrews said beyond seeing repeating students like Odoom, she was happy to see that the majority of this year’s participants were either from one of their smaller events or dealing with the centre for the very first time. One of such students was part of the winning team. This was fourth-year business student Demba Cisse’s first-ever involvement with the centre and he really liked it.

“I really like it that it was challenging,” Cisse said. He joined because this was his last chance before graduating. But balancing five courses, a job, everything else, plus the eight-day sprint wasn’t the easiest. “I can’t say it was very easy, but I did my best to organize my time and make sure to be satisfied at the end.” Cisse explained that their product idea was inspired by Hurricane Fiona. “All of us were here when Fiona happened… we know how it affected people on the island… that’s why we came up with this business idea.”

The success of this year’s pitch battles shows that the program is starting to take hold across campus. “These groups did a really good job. It was really exciting… and there are a few groups who are already looking for the next step.”Team 4SPACE won second place and the breakthrough award, ByeByCatch third place, and HydraClip the audience choice. Pitch Battles is a competition that continues to grow in ambition, visibility, and student engagement.