Collapsible Bicycle Backpack, an idea from Mechanical Engineering student Ethan Fitzgerald and Architecture student Cortland Townsend won first place and a $500 prize in the 2022 TOP DOG Idea Pitch contest.

The event, sponsored by the Innovation Enterprise at Louisiana Tech University, teams delivered five-minute pitches about their ideas for products or services, and then professional judges rated their concepts.

During the Nov. 1 event, students also visited with teams to learn about their projects and then voted for their favorite ideas.

Second place winner was Harper [B]istro, an idea from Construction Engineering Technology major Lauren Parker and Civil Engineering major Whitney Scheiff. The team brought home a $250 prize. Haptic Cane, an idea from Biomedical Engineering major Elisha Olagbami won third place and $150.

The Idea Pitch gives teams exposure to experts who share feedback as well as to potential customers to help teams gauge market interest. Teams are mentored by business professionals in the months before the New Venture Championship, the next step in the process.

The final round for the TOP DOG series will be held in April 2023. There, the teams earn a chance to win money and six months incubator space at Louisiana Tech to help them make progress toward turning their ideas into reality.

• Teams participating in the 2022 TOP DOG Idea Pitch include:
• PtF – Plastic to Fuel – Chemical Engineering major Vir Sagar
• Going My Way - Micro and Nanoscale Systems Engineering major Alexander Isiani
• Ruston Spores - Electrical Engineering major Eli Tomlin
• Kwik D.O.G. - Stephen Gordon, PhD student in Material Science and Infrastructure Systems
• BACME – Marketing major Lauren Thomas
• Mood Monitor – Biomedical Engineering major Tyler Hight

For more information about the TOP DOG events, email Kathy Wyatt at kwyatt@latech.edu.