LEWISBURG, Pa. — When Bucknell freshman Will Crosswhite and Hunter Gehman met in an engineering course earlier this year, they knew they worked well together.
What they didn't realize was that just a few months later, they'd be starting a company together with two other students.
It's called GeoRef, and it's an app that solves a problem they all experienced growing up, playing sports.
"Referees would constantly show up late or not even show up at all, and it would delay our games," said Crosswhite. "We wanted to create a product to help solve that."
"Some leagues are still using paper spreadsheets, other leagues are just using inefficient software that might have a referee that has a game five minutes from him, but he's driving 45 minutes plus to his games. So our solution has an algorithm that minimizes the distance they have to travel and also has communication built in," said Gehman.
The group is hoping to grow their idea into a full-fledged business by entering into a competition held at Bucknell every year called BizPitch.
They'll compete against other entrepreneurs like seniors Stevie Rauch, Ben Carcieri, and Will Carcieri. This group of engineers created an app to help small musical artists grow their fan base.
"Uncharted is a social media discovery app. We like to think of it like TikTok but for music," explained Rauch.
"So we have a lot of friends and family who are independent artists and are super talented, but we've also seen them struggle to gain traction on other social media platforms and streaming services," added Ben Carcieri.
"Basically, we show users short previews of songs that they can swipe through really quickly, so users can save those songs, add them directly to playlists, and share them with friends," said Will Carcieri.
Senior Simbi Maphosa came up with her business idea after watching her grandmother struggle with asthma for most of her life.
"Unfortunately, she did not have access to medical devices like many other thousands of patients in Zimbabwe," said Maphosa. "So I decided to design Prime Air which is a portable nebulizer for treating asthma that is specifically tailored for use in underserved communities."
Freshman Mikey Brandt started his business, LEFTClothing, in high school. Now, he's selling products to students on campus.
"We're shifting gears toward 'left-over,' a section of my brand that focuses on sustainability," said Brandt. "We thrift products, all of these products here are thrifted, and then we upcycle them to cater towards vintage wearers."
The finale of BizPitch is scheduled for Monday, April 10, at 6:30 p.m. at Bucknell University in the Terrace Room. The big winner gets $5,000 to help with their small business.
Check out the 2023 finalists below: