Belmont University

Belmont University's Thomas F. Cone Sr. Center for Entrepreneurship hosted its 2nd annual Buntin Pitch Competition, April 3. Nine students across multiple disciplines pitched their businesses to a panel of guest judges for the chance to win seed money to support their creative ventures.

Biannual pitch competition empowers student entrepreneurs to turn ideas into reality

Annual pitch competition empowers student entrepreneurs to turn ideas into reality

At the 2024 American Advertising Federation's Nashville Awards, known as the ADDY awards, students from the Watkins College of Art once again demonstrated their exceptional talent and dedication to graphic design, with seven students taking home numerous awards in this year's local competition.In addition to their stack of gold and silver awards, Watkins students also claimed most of the Judges' Choice, the Rising Star and the Best of Showawards.

Four giant checks equaling $8,250 were awarded to winners of the Business Plan Competition hosted by the Thomas F. Cone Sr. Center for Entrepreneurship where students presented their real business ventures - either currently operating or planning for launch - to a panel of alumni judges.

Belmont's Speech and Debate Team won championship titles after recently competing in two distinguished tournaments: the Tennessee Intercollegiate Forensics Association (TIFA) state tournament on Feb. 17-18 and the National Christian College Forensics Invitational (NCCFI), held March 7-9.

The Belmont Speech and Debate team won the state title in historic fashion at the Tennessee Intercollegiate Forensics Association (TIFA) state tournament held at Pellissippi State Community College on March 26-27. The team spent the weekend debating hot topic issues and using their voices to stand up for the disadvantaged. Some highlights include Kay Allen winning Top Speaker in the novice division and Luke Litz winning Second Place Speaker in the varsity division. Additionally, in individual events, senior Alex Jordan won Top Overall Speaker at the tournament with six other Belmont students placing in the Top Eight. In all twelve individual events offered at the tournament, Belmont University won seven "Top Novice" awards for first-year competitors and claimed the state championship in 10 of the 12 individual events. No other team in the history of the competition has won that many individual titles. In total, Belmont totaled 393 points throughout the course of the weekend, with the second highest ranking team only scoring 143 points overall.

On Wednesday November 17, Belmont students had the opportunity to compete in the Thomas F. Cone Sr. Center for Entrepreneurship's Business Pitch Competition. The winners of this year's competition are Hannah Rodriguez and Emily Heneger in first and second place respectively, with Chandel Shanklin and Penny Kapadoukakis tying for third. The pitch competition helps bring students' business dreams to life by allowing them to give a one-minute, shark-tank style business pitch to a panel of four judges with the first place winner receiving $2,000, second place receiving $1,000 and third place receiving $500. Each of the winning students plans on using the prize money to help grow their business.

Belmont students Katie Langan, an international business major, and DJ Needs, an economics and entrepreneurship double major, truly took the saying "From Here to Anywhere" to heart when their teams won gold medals at the University of Connecticut's Global Business Case Competition. Langan, who worked on a team of four called KJR Global Solutions, and Needs, who worked on a team of three called Mushbrains, put their business skills to the test when challenged to help solve real-world international business problems.

Caroline Cole, senior marketing and creative and entertainment industries major at Belmont University, recently became one of six international finalists in the MPI-IMEX Future Leaders Forum. Every year Meeting Planners International (MPI), a global organization for all meeting planners, in collaboration with IMEX, another event production and networking company, holds six Future Leaders Forums. At those forums, selected students participate in a competition where they are given an event description from which they create an event brief. Students then present their briefs to industry professionals at the forums. Following those presentations, one winner from each of the six forums is chosen to compete in the larger University Challenge at the International Future Leader Forums, which is being held next spring in Frankfurt, Germany. Cole is set to compete at the Frankfurt Future Leaders Forum April 26-28, 2022.

The Belmont University Speech and Debate Team won the state championship at the Tennessee Intercollegiate Forensics Association (TIFA) competition.The tournament was held Feb. 8-10, 2019 on the campus of Carson-Newman University. With 12 universities in competition, Belmont placed first in individual events, third in debate and ranked top in the overall competition. Team members competed in debate, public speaking and literature interpretation events. Throughout the program, they hone their critical thinking, speech writing and performance skills in competitions across the country.

A group of Belmont students recently participated in the 2018 DECA International Career Development Conference, an opportunity for budding professionals to put their business acumen to the test and swept the award categories. Out of 27 Belmont students who competed, 20 were judged as international finalists-the best-ever overall showing by a Belmont team.

A group of Belmont students recently participated in the International Collegiate DECA Competition, an opportunity for budding professionals to put their business acumen to the test, and swept the award categories. Every one of Belmont's individual event finalists placed in the top ten of their events and five student teams advanced to the final round of the Entrepreneurship Challenge, among 52 teams. Three groups placed in the Challenge's top ten and one of those teams received first place.