Last Friday, Flashstarts interns participated in the NOCHE (Northeast Ohio Council on Higher Education) Entrepreneurial Internship Fair & Presentation Competition. At the NOCHE event, there were over 70 interns from various companies throughout Northeast Ohio. Flashstarts interns had the largest presence, making up almost a third of the group.
Upon arriving, interns were split up among six smaller presentation rooms, where they made their “personal pitch” – a five-minute presentation sharing their general internship experience and some projects completed along the way. In each room there was a judge who was involved in entrepreneurship in some capacity, whether working for a software company or actually founding a startup themselves.
After the smaller group presentations, all of the interns gathered in a main room to eat snacks and wait for the finalists to be announced.
Five out of the six finalists were Flashstarts interns! The finalists were Ibrahim Urooj Saeed, Max Krieger, Colin Soleim, Zac Vance, and Makenzie O’Connor. The finalists then presented to the larger group, and all of the interns voted on the best presentation using remote clickers.
Flashstarts finalists of the NOCHE Pitch Competition.
Flashstarts took the lead! Ibs Saeed won the whole competition, and Max Krieger landed second place. The two took home a bunch of prizes, including cookies, a gift card, and a t-shirt.
When asked how he felt about the win, Ibs expressed that he was surprised, and said “I didn’t spend much time on my presentation and counted on expressing honest emotions about my experience. I was just happy that the audience appreciated an honest, heartfelt account of my summer.”
Ibs with some of his prizes after winning the NOCHE Pitch Competition.
The NOCHE event turned out to be a great afternoon for Flashstarts. Not only did we kind of sweep the competition, but we also had the chance to bond as an intern group outside of the office. As our internship program comes to a close, it was nice to have the opportunity to reflect on our summers, and the NOCHE event was the perfect place to do so.
