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The Libraries’ 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 ’24 and Brandon Henry ’24, with support from other Blackstone LaunchPad student employees and founders.

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

Olutosin “Tosin” Alabi G’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 ’26 won second place with Dormbank, a proposed reseller of college residence hall items like appliances and small electronics. Third place winner Justin Diaz ’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’21, founder of Faithful Works, which offers virtual assistant and grant consulting services to nonprofits, small business owners and startup;
• Derrell Smith ’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 “Koi” Munyua G’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’s 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’s 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 .