Start-Up Challenge, Pitch Competition Showcase Student Innovation

By GAYANE TOROSYAN
ONEONTA

SUNY Oneonta and Hartwick College students gathered for a start-up pitch competition, spotlighting emerging innovators and entrepreneurs. Held at the Otsego Grille in Morris Hall on the SUNY Oneonta campus on Tuesday, May 6, the event emphasized leadership, creativity, problem-solving and resilience.

Alexia Michitti, a business administration major at SUNY Oneonta, won the Grand 5-Star Pitch competition for her start-up, EM13RACE, an adaptive clothing company for people with limb differences.

Michitti, of Vestal, said she will use the prize money for production and purchasing clothing this summer. In July, she plans to attend the Lucky Finn Project Weekend, the world’s largest gathering for individuals with upper-limb differences. There, she will sell youth and toddler apparel designed specifically for children, featuring the company’s trademark EM13RACE logo.

The company’s name incorporates Michitti’s favorite number, 13, stylized to resemble the letter “B” from afar—a nod to how limb differences can be less noticeable at first glance. She also designed the “M” in the logo to reflect her own right-side limb difference.

Born without a right hand, Michitti is a goalkeeper and co-captain of the first-ever U.S. National Women’s Amputee Soccer Team. In November 2024, she traveled to Colombia for an international tournament, where her team earned silver medals while she received the Golden Glove Award as the tournament’s top goalkeeper.

“It was very awesome!” Michitti said.

Hartwick College senior Runyararo Chaora, from Harare, Zimbabwe, won the Top Pitch prize for her school with Mentorlink, a career services marketplace that connects students with mentorship and job opportunities. A biochemistry and mathematics major on the pre-med track, she plans to begin a graduate program in biotechnology at the University of Pennsylvania in the fall.

“I hope I win—of course, everybody comes here to win, right?” Chaora said before the results were announced.

SUNY Oneonta senior Layla Driscoll-Webster of Shullsburg, Wisconsin won the Top SUNY Oneonta Pitch award for Brave Blossom—her business plan to establish a brick-and-mortar store offering bras for women recovering from mastectomy surgery.

Fashion and Textile Professor Sarah Portway worked with Michitti and Driscoll-Webster individually and said seeing them win was extremely rewarding.

“Independent studies are above and beyond the regular workload for faculty, and they are very difficult for students who are not independent learners,” Portway said. “So, seeing students be able to really do this on their own with only a few guardrails in place is probably the most rewarding of all! … Those two cannot be stopped! I basically just cleared a few things out of their way.”

Portway said she was equally impressed by Chaora’s project, Mentorlink.

“She was truly incredible,” Portway said. “My students would benefit from what she’s building.”

“This was the first business pitch competition jointly executed by our two institutions, and it received strong support from the local business community,” said SUNY Oneonta President Alberto Cardelle. “I am blown away by the passion, dedication and imagination brought to the competition by all our student entrepreneurs. This one night of business pitches was the culmination of weeks and months of hard work supported every step of the way by business professionals and academic mentors. We hope that this competition inspires all our students to follow their entrepreneurial instincts and tap into all the supports open to them to succeed here on campus and beyond.”

Caroline J. Williams, director of community and government relations at SUNY Oneonta, said 14 teams participated in Tuesday’s event.

Hartwick winner Runyararo Chaora received $500.00 through the Hartwick Fund. SUNY Oneonta winner Layla Driscoll-Webster earned $500.00 through the Al and Michelle Rubin Entrepreneurial Fund. Grand 5-Star Pitch winner Alexia Michitti was awarded $2,000.00 through a donation from Ben Guenther at Five Star Subaru to the SUNY Oneonta Entrepreneurship Fund.

Other competitors included SUNY Oneonta students Analis Estevez, founder of Ana’s Curly Essentials, or ACE, and Brennan Karr, founder of WOW, both members of the Entrepreneurship Club.
Faculty support has played a key role in fostering student entrepreneurship at both institutions. Portway has guided students through business planning and fashion pitch contests, while professors Alsius David and Kai Chen incorporate entrepreneurship into their coursework and club advisement.
Williams noted that this was the first collaborative pitch competition between SUNY Oneonta and Hartwick College but reflected on the long-standing tradition of faculty mentorship in business development.

The two colleges share entrepreneur-in-residence Adam Chaloeicheep, who works toward broadening student engagement across disciplines. Chaloeicheep said he was inspired watching judges from the area’s top businesses react to the students’ pitches.

“After the event, the CEO of Subaru pulled me aside and said, ‘This is exactly what this town needs,’ and asked how we could bring even more students to the event next year,” Chaloeicheep said.

“That’s a strong signal,” he added. “We don’t talk about it enough, but this town and community need a fresh surge of energy and innovation. I hope this competition is the first step toward launching new ventures whose impact ripples back into town, because innovation is the cure for stagnation.”

Recent graduates know the importance of jump-starting their careers after college. Raynella Clarke, who graduated from SUNY Oneonta in 2024 with a degree in anthropology and history, was hired as assistant to the chief of staff in the Office of the President through SUNY Oneonta’s Dragon Corps Program that offers full-time jobs to recent alumni. Clarke was helping the organizers of the event by meeting and greeting participants and guests.

“I think it is a pretty good opportunity for students who are interested in becoming business owners to learn all the practical skills that go into that and supports them to learn public speaking skills and all those different things, so I think it’s awesome!” Clarke said.