FlashPitch

Fifth Annual FlashPitch Competition

The Graduate College is hosting its fifth FlashPitch competition – a 90-second elevator pitch competition for graduate students. Participants will gain experience in:

Presenting your research to an interdisciplinary audience.
Developing critical elevator pitch skills in order to clearly communicate your research in networking situations, at conferences and in the job market.
Delivering a pitch on your research agenda, research interests or a specific research project.

In addition to gaining valuable experience, graduate students will be competing for cash prizes!

First Place: $400
Second Place: $250
Third Place: $150
People’s Choice: $150

Congratulations to the Spring 2024 award recipients!

First Place: Shayna Morrison, Sociology and Criminology

Second Place: Ayusha Paul, Physics

Third Place: Aiswarya Mukundan Nair, Biological Sciences

2024 FlashPitch Finalists

Preparing your FlashPitch Workshop

Students can make a to discuss and receive feedback on their pitch for the competition in addition to .

Judging Criteria

Communicating your Research Question: Effectively communicate a clear and focused research question(s)

Communicating Why your Research Matters and Possible Impact or Implications: Effectively communicate why the research is important and why it has value. Communicate what the potential implications of engaging in this research might be and what issues or problems it might address, better understand or solve.

Engagement: Convey enthusiasm for the research while capturing and maintaining the audience's attention and interest in the research.

Organization and Clarity: Organize the presentation logically, with clarity, and provide appropriate context for someone outside the specific discipline to understand.

View the Rubric

FlashPitch Rules

Graduate students have a maximum of 90 seconds to share a pre-recorded video without any visual aids (ex: no PowerPoint slides, props, poster presentations, etc.) delivering a pitch on an individual research project or their research agenda/interests.
When presenting, students should explain their research interests, their research question(s), and address why the research matters (ex: what gaps in the current research does this address or what are possible implications of the research).
Videos of pitches must be recorded horizontally. Students can record their pitch on their phone, laptop or other recording device. Students should upload their video file to the FlashPitch registration form.
In order to be eligible, graduate students must submit their registration and video recording by the deadline.
Students can record their video using the camera on their phone or by recording themselves with a laptop webcam by using Zoom or Microsoft Teams that allows you to download your video as a MP4 file. You can upload a the MP4 video file to the registration form. If you have issues with recording or uploading your video, contact the Graduate College at graduatecollege@kent.edu.

Tips for Filming at Home

Lighting
Dark environments impact the overall quality of your video because cameras do not perform well in dim lighting. Ensuring you are well lit guarantees the camera and therefore, your audience, can see you clearly. Look for a room in your home that has a lot of natural light. If you are using light from a window, ensure you are facing towards the window so light falls on you directly. Any additional lighting you can introduce will further improve the quality of your video.

Sound
When filming your video at home, ensure you choose a very quiet environment where you have as much control over the sound as possible. For example, choose a small room where you have the ability to close all doors and windows. Make sure any noisy electronics in the room such as fans, air conditioners, computers, and phones are temporarily turned off. These technologies can be distracting to your audience.

Be aware of any audible interruptions you do not have control over such as airplanes, lawns mowers and cars. Consider filming during a quiet time of day such as early in the morning when there are likely to be less interruptions. If there are audio interruptions during your recording, do not continue. Wait it out and try again at a later point.

Background
Aim for a clean, plain wall as your background, completely free of visual distractions from the waist up where you will be framing your shot. You may also consider recording your video with a professional background using a green screen or applying a background filter on video conference platforms like Zoom.

Camera
Make eye contact with the camera and avoid reading from notes or a script.

Past FlashPitch Finalists and Awardees