The Sontag Entrepreneurship Competition was established by the College of Business at the University of Nevada, Reno, to develop the next generation of entrepreneurs.
For the last ten years, students from the University have competed for a chance to win $50,000 to help fund their innovative business ideas. Out of the 26 teams that initially entered the 2021 Sontag Entrepreneurship Competition, five were chosen as finalists.
“The quality of the business concepts and presentations by the Sontag competitors this year was extremely high,” Richard Bartholet, Sontag Competition director, said. “Most of the returning judges commented on the outstanding quality of work – across the board.”
The Sontag Finals will occur virtually Friday, April 30, with the five teams presenting their pitches to a panel of judges, followed by a Q&A session. The winning team will take home the $50,000 Sontag Award.
The five student-led finalist teams are:
- Me & My Truck, an application service that connects customers to prospective haulers, so individuals with trucks can work as their own boss, hauling and moving items for customers in their community.
- Team: Hunter Jablonski and Thomas Setnan
- MyKar, LLC, a pick-up and delivery service to help automobile owners struggling from prolonged and put-off maintenance, easily solve their automotive service difficulties.
- Team: Dawson Lamb, Akram Reshad, Gurjant Mand, Jacob Teems-Robinson and David Haulot
- Secura Technologies, a reliable tracking and asset monitoring service for equipment in construction and closely related industries.
- Team: Porter Rittenhouse
- SheTrek, a travel and tour service with the goal of providing women with a safe, worry-free and empowering travel experience.
- Team: Alyssa Cova and Sienna Bates
- Ubuntu Health Innovations, a mobile application and virtual consultation platform that seeks to make health and healthcare information easily accessible to the public and healthcare professionals in Ghana, Africa.
- Team: Jacob Mwanza and Hamza Asumah
University alumnus Rick Sontag created the Sontag Entrepreneurship Competition in 2011 with his $1 million gift to the University. The endowment created by the gift funds the award in perpetuity. The award is a single prize of $50,000, given at the end of each spring semester to the competition winner.
