In previous years, the winning team in the competition has won a monetary prize ranging from $2,500 to $3,000 for its company. This year, teams competed instead for a chance to win $50,000 at the competition at Tuck, which is sponsored by the DEN, an alumni network of College graduates who have become entrepreneurs.
Gregg Fairbrothers '76, founding director of the DEN and Tuck professor, said competition stimulates creative activity and can help aspiring entrepreneurs "focus on pulling their story together."
"People see their business in a new way when they have to present it to a group of people," he said.
Each team began Monday's competition with a 10-minute prepared presentation pitching their business plans to the judges, who were all Dartmouth alumni with entrepreneurial experience. A 10-minute question-and-answer session followed the presentation. CODE's executive board chose the four competing teams from 15 original submissions.
Five Bamboo team member Rohre Titcomb '09, who represented the company at the competition, said the company aspires to meet the increasing demand for sustainable goods through the production and sale of clothing made out of bamboo.
Titcomb said that consumers are now buying more environmentally friendly goods, which creates a viable market for products like those offered by Five Bamboo.
"The current bamboo apparel market is under-developed and fragmented," she said.
Titcomb also said that the small size of the company, which is comprised of Titcomb, Thomas Villalon '06 and Titcomb's four siblings, who do not attend the College, allows it to be "reactive to the market."
Five Bamboo has "a pretty realistic shot" at winning the upcoming competition at Tuck, Titcomb said.
"It's really exciting," she said. "We're competing against people that have already graduated and started businesses."
CODE President Sander Duncan '09, who organized the event, said that Titcomb gave a confident presentation during Monday's competition.
"Her company seems pretty strong," he said. "I'm very optimistic about her chances in the Tuck competition."
Heat Save, a product idea presented by Matt Jorgensen '12 and Joey Anthony '12, was the competition's runner-up. The pair's company aims to "reinvent" standard kitchen ovens by decreasing the time needed to preheat an oven, thereby conserving energy.
"Cooking food in ovens is inefficient," Jorgensen said. "There's no Energy Star standard [for ovens]."
Jorgensen and Anthony's appliance would be inserted by the user and allow the user to adjust the oven's interior size. The team aspires to sell the product to a larger company, once it "gains traction," Jorgensen said.
Blattistics, presented by Zachary Blatt '11, aims to sell affordable and customizable financial modeling services to "non-institutional" investors. Michael Bamberger '09, who presented Petduel.com, is seeking to expand the company's existing web site into retail channels.