Grand Challenges Events

Team naRoho at the 2023 Pitch Competition

The Grand Challenges Impact Competition: Pitch and Project Showcase is a celebration of Dyson students, teams, community partners, and clients. During this event each semester, teams share their work and explain how prize money could support the impactful goals of their project partner.

Join us at the Grand Challenges Impact Competition
November 14, 2024
5:00-7:00 pm

We proudly partner with Impact Competition, which empowers students to address the most pressing social issues in their community by building a bridge between academia and local nonprofits. Unlike with most case competitions, winning students receive funding and get to implement their ideas, allowing their solutions to make a positive difference in the world.

Impact Competition Schedule

4:30 pm: Doors open
5:00 pm: Opening remarks (Warren Hall 401) and pitches by four teams (Warren Hall 401)
5:50 pm: Judges deliberate, poster session and gallery walk, heavy appetizers (Warren Hall fourth floor lobby)
6:30 pm: Awards announced and closing remarks, celebration and networking

The event will be in Warren Hall Room 401 on Cornell’s campus. We encourage busing or carpooling, ParkMobile parking is available on campus for guests.

Not Your Typical Pitch Competition

What is your project? Why does it matter? And how will you translate your knowledge into action toward business for a better world?

Students complete semester-long capstone projects with real-world partners and apply to the Grand Challenges Impact Competition each semester. Project teams present a pitch or a poster, and judges will award $22,500 in prize money to top teams. Prize money is given to non-profits partners or organizations who align with project goals, not to the team itself.

Meet the Fall 2024 Pitching Teams

Meet Our 2024 Distinguished Judges

Jackie Barrett is the Associate Director of Leadership Programs at the SC Johnson Graduate School of Management. In this role she designs and delivers a variety of programs which allow MBA students to develop their leadership skills, including outdoor education expeditions, co-curricular workshops, cohort learning experiences, and case competitions. Among these offerings is the Grand Challenges Coaches program, in which MBA students are paired with Grand Challenges teams to support their project work and team effectiveness while learning coaching skills themselves. Jackie co-designed and launched the Grand Challenges Coaches program and currently leads it. Jackie also serves as a classroom partner for two academic courses, provides students with leadership coaching, and is the staff advisor to the MBA Student Council and Johnson Board Fellows. She holds a BA in Psychology from Grinnell College and an MBA from the SC Johnson Graduate School of Management at Cornell University, and she was named a Faculty Fellow in Engaged Learning by the Einhorn Center for 2024-25. In her free time, Jackie supports the Ithaca Community School for Music and Arts as a board member, makes pottery, and enjoys spending time in her garden.

Lance Breitstein plays an active role in the direction of the Impact Competition, which he founded in 2018 while still a stock trader at Trillium. While no longer a full-time trader, Lance keeps one foot in the finance world while still finding time to travel across the country to be a part of and judge Impact Competitions at all the partner universities. As the main donor, fundraiser, and organization’s resident finance guru, Lance has found the perfect mix of utilizing old skillsets while building new ones as he learns and explores the world of philanthropy.

Dr. Jennifer Galvin is president of the Henry David Thoreau Foundation. She leads the Foundation’s investments in Thoreau Scholars and faculty grantees to catalyze, support, and empower environmental leadership. An environmental and public health scientist by training, Jennifer is determined to drive societal progress and connect people with social and environmental challenges. Her investigations and communications have contributed to a greater understanding of global health, particularly for island and coastal populations. Jennifer holds a Doctor of Science (ScD) in environmental health from the Exposure, Epidemiology and Risk Program at the Harvard School of Public Health, a Master of Public Health (MPH) in environmental epidemiology from Yale, and a Bachelor of Science (BS) in aquatic biology from Brown. As founder of reelblue, an independent production and media company, Jennifer is also internationally recognized as a filmmaker who connects art with science to inspire social transformation. She recently launched Our Storied Health at the Brown School of Public Health’s Pandemic Center to showcase the power of storytelling as a public health intervention.

Dr. Andrea Merrill, known as Andi by all of her friends and students, spends most of her afternoons teaching at Opus Ithaca. From 2006-2009 Andi was a member of the piano faculty of Ithaca College, and worked at St. Paul’s Methodist Church as pianist and organist until 2013. In 2011 Dr. Merrill founded Opus Ithaca and has enjoyed watching the school grow into what it is today. Andrea holds a Doctoral degree (DMA) in piano accompanying and chamber music from the Eastman School of Music, a Master of Music degree in piano accompanying from Arizona State University, and a Bachelor of Music degree in piano performance from Ithaca College. Andrea also studied piano at the Mozarteum Sommerakademie in Salzburg, Austria. She has recorded two albums of the music of Kenneth Kreuzer on Sphere Sound Records with trombonist Hal Reynolds, and flutists Christine Gustafson and Jeanne Sperber; the Ithaca Flute Duo album, “Debut” with Elizabeth Shuhan and Juliana May Pepinsky; and music by Dexter Morrill with baritone saxophonist, Nancy Boone Bahr. Andi continues to be an active adjudicator and performer, and serves on the Collaborative Committee of the National Conference on Keyboard Pedagogy.

Event Acknowledgements

The Grand Challenges Program, the Charles H. Dyson School of Applied Economics and Management, and the Dyson Undergraduate Council would like to thank our generous donors including the Impact Competition Foundation for helping to fund this Cornell Certified Sustainable Event. We would also like to thank all who provide time, feedback, and insights to support our growing program. A special thanks to our students, clients, and community partners who inspire us with their work.