Business & Economy

Olutosin Alabi G鈥�25 Wins 3rd Annual Afropreneurship Competition

Friday, February 16, 2024, By Cristina Hatem

The Libraries鈥� hosted the third annual Afropreneurship Panel, Networking and Pitch competition in Bird Library on Feb. 9 in celebration of Black History Month.

The competition was organized by two students in the , Motolani Oladitan 鈥�24 and Brandon Henry 鈥�24, with support from other Blackstone LaunchPad student employees and founders.

Tosin Alabi speaks into a microphone at the Afropreneurship Panel, Networking and Pitch competition

Tosin Alabi took first place in the recent Afropreneurship Pitch Competition. (Photo by Mariah Brown)

Olutosin 鈥淭osin鈥� Alabi G鈥�25, an MBA student in the , won first place in the 90-second pitch competition with her proposed health tech startup, DiabeTech Nexus, a sensor-detecting diabetes wound bandage.

Whitman undergraduate student Mariah Brown 鈥�26 won second place with Dormbank, a proposed reseller of college residence hall items like appliances and small electronics. Third place winner Justin Diaz 鈥�24, also a student in the Whitman School, is founder of Eco Bamboo Living, a company that would create tiny homes made of bamboo for more sustainable living.

Judges for the pitch competition also spoke to students during a panel discussion on being an innovator, entrepreneur and creative of color. Panelists/judges included:

  • Brianna Howard G鈥�21, founder of Faithful Works, which offers virtual assistant and grant consulting services to nonprofits, small business owners and startup;
  • Derrell Smith 鈥�10, retired NFL player turned chef and founder of a meatball company named Amazeballs, who has cooked on stages around the world and stars in his own TV show on Tastemade;
  • Damaris 鈥淜oi鈥� Munyua G鈥�22, founder of the marketing agency Koi and Company, which specializes in copywriting, graphic and website design;
  • Ana Catalina Rodriguez Botello, a diversity and social impact professional with a master鈥檚 degree in public and social Policy from Universitat Pompeu Fabra and a LEAD Certificate from Stanford University, currently serving as global social impact senior manager at Marsh McLennan;
  • Phahsa Ras, co-founder of UMi, the world鈥檚 first “Conscious Attention Economy,” capitalizing on the impact of such emergent technologies as generative AI on jobs and entrepreneurial opportunities; and
  • Kofi Addai, associate director of bias education and response in .