Montana Tech Students and Faculty Successful at Startup Weekend

Startup Weekend Butte was held March 27-29 at the Thornton building in uptown Butte. Startup Weekends are events where developers, designers, marketers, product managers and startup enthusiasts form teams and compete to create a startup in 54-hours. The event began on Friday night with 21 people giving 60-second business pitches. Nine teams formed around the best pitches, each team then worked Saturday and Sunday to develop their companies with advice from a team of coaches. On Sunday night, each team gave a five-minute presentation to a group of judges who determined the winners.

First place went to team Item Bounty consisting of Chris Casties, from the University of Montana-Western, who pitched the idea; Dr. Keith Vertanen, Associate Professor in the Computer Science Department at Montana Tech; Justin Emge, senior, Computer Science at Montana Tech; Kirstie McPherson, senior, Business and Information Technology at Montana Tech; Michael Maher, Montana State University-Bozeman, and Brian Maher, Montana State University-Bozeman.

Second place went to team Steritite consisting of Hyatt Voy, freshman in Mechanical Engineering and Business at Montana Tech; Conrad Nikkels, freshman in Electrical Engineering and Business at Montana Tech; Chad Miller, UM-Missoula; and Kelly Sheridan, UM-Missoula.

The first place team won the following: a meeting with the Governor’s Office of Economic Development, tickets to the Invest in Success Conference, a feature story on Innovate Montana website, one week passes to Fountainhead Coworking in Butte, two weeks of daily coworking passes at The Shop Helena, two hour team photo shoot on location of choice by ndigena, a $100 Amazon gift card, and two startup books.

The second place team won the following: one week of daily coworking passes at The Shop Helena, team headshots by ndigena, a $50 Amazon gift card, and two startup books.

You can read more about Startup Weekend Butte at http://blog.up.co/2015/03/30/startup-weekend-butte-march-27-29-2015-big-success.