Forget basketball. For student entrepreneurs, South by Southwest offers a different kind of "madness" in March.
SXSW Interactive (the entrepreneurship and digital-focused week of Austin, Texas's annual creative showcase) hosts the annual Student Startup Madness competition, in which 64 student-founded digital media startups compete to pitch on the SXSW stage for funding. It's a tournament-style competition: The first two rounds are selected through an online vote, then the "Entrepreneurial Eight" are invited to pitch to a panel of judges at SXSW on March 13.
This year, students from 36 different colleges and universities across the country were selected to compete, including four student startups from Illinois: Jifflo and Reltup from University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, Omnipointment from Illinois Institute of Technology, and Queue from University of Chicago.
Last year eight student startups were selected from Illinois (including Omnipointment), and in 2015 UChicago student Daniel Yu, founder of Sokowatch (then Reliefwatch) won the competition.
Here's a look at the 64 student startups competing at SXSW's Student Startup Madness 2017:
- 101 from Carnegie Mellon University
- Acculis from New York University
- Ally from University of Texas at Dallas
- Ametier from Clarkson University
- Aquaint from University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA)
- Belle Applications from Cornell University
- Blitzer from University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA)
- Chang’s Chat from Arizona State University
- Channels from Washington University in St. Louis
- COCO (College Connection) from Syracuse University
- CollegeU from University of Southern California
- Comake from Cornell University
- Converse VR from University of Texas at Dallas
- Drops from University of Southern California
- Dycap Media Solutions from University of Florida
- FeverFit from University of Texas at Austin
- Find Your Ditto from University of Michigan
- Food Design HQ from Michigan State University
- GameBoyz from Michigan State University
- Geopipe from Brown University
- HipStake from University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA)
- Horizon from Michigan State University
- Ice Breaker App from Michigan State University
- ID Books from University of Texas at Austin
- Imajion from Syracuse University
- Jifflo from University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
- Junto from Vanderbilt University
- Kwest from University of Texas at Dallas
- LearnMe from Purdue University Northwest
- Lucky Day Entertainment from University of Southern California
- MemoryFox from State University of New York at Buffalo
- Modern Technology Advancements from University of Michigan
- Omnipointment from Illinois Institute of Technology and University of Nebraska-Lincoln
- Orai from Drexel University
- Parihug from Case Western Reserve University
- Parsegon from Columbia University
- Paxton Medical from Michigan State University
- Phlex from University of Florida
- Players Revolution Sports from University of North Texas
- Prndl from Michigan State University
- PubliPost from University of Southern California
- Queue from University of Chicago
- Reflexion Interactive Technologies from Case Western Reserve University
- Reltup from University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
- Retail Jump (ineed) from Michigan State University
- Ryze from Texas A&M University
- Savofair from Syracuse University
- SearchParty from Bucknell University
- Shuttl from Michigan State University
- Somatic Signals from University of Rochester
- Spolitic from Syracuse University
- Swifte from University of Georgia
- Talk With Sam from University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
- The Releaf Group from Princeton University
- Theatre Galleria from New York University
- TownWave from Texas Tech University, Senior Media Strategies Student
- TravelSee from Cornell University
- UNIBEES from University of Texas at Dallas
- WalkAround VR from Syracuse University
- Weather General from Texas A&M University
- WES Power from Case Western Reserve University
- WiNot App from Washington University in St. Louis
- Zealery from Northeastern University
- ZOI Networks from Florida State University
