What's The Big Idea? Pitch Competition Finale

32 Market Square,Knoxville TN 37902

05 March, 2023

Description

Join us at Scruffy City Hall on Sunday, March 5th to watch our finalists compete for the $10,000 prize! Public Voting is live from Feb 13th-19th. If you'd like to participate, use this link to watch the 1-minute pitch videos and vote for your favorite(s)! Finalists will be announced on Wednesday, February 22nd. Meet the Judges: 💡Melissa Centers Melissa Centers (www.linkedin.com/in/melissa-centers-2701802) is a board member, consultant, and attorney who provides integrated strategic advice and support to Boards of Directors, founders, and companies of all sizes. Before entering private practice, Melissa was the Senior Vice President, General Counsel, and Corporate Secretary at State Auto Insurance, a $2 billion publicly traded insurance company that also operated a venture capital fund, State Auto Labs (where Melissa was the legal advisor and served on the fund’s Board of Directors). She has also held executive leadership and consulting roles in IT, operations, communications, crisis PR, marketing, human resources, government affairs, audit, and of course, legal and compliance. When not helping clients with their most complex challenges, Melissa is a writing enthusiast and professor. You can check out her business newsletter at: prepovercoffee.substack.com.💡Damon Rawls Damon Rawls is the Founder of Innovation Digital Agency with over 10 years of helping small businesses with their digital marketing needs. Specializing in practical results, Damon uses that experience to get results that impact his client's ROI. Over the years, his strengths in marketing have garnered some recognition for community impact. Damon created the Knoxville Black Business directory, a website dedicated to promoting black-owned businesses. When he is not working, Damon is an avid golfer and loves spending time playing badly.💡Patrick Hunt Patrick Hunt is a serial entrepreneur and Chief Evangelist for Lirio, the leading personalization engine for digital health. He was co-founder and CEO of Fiveworx, which was acquired, and a founder or senior executive at multiple other tech companies in his career. In addition to being a judge for What’s the Big Idea, Patrick is a KEC mentor and leads the organization’s Inflection Point accelerator for growth stage companies. Patrick is married and has a 16-year old daughter. Thank you to our sponsors: