Provided/Kirkland Burthey

Winners of the Elevator Pitch Competition stand with members of the Cornell Entreprenuer Organization. From left, Adel Benslimane, Emil Jihad, Jennifer Heumann, Idan Levy, Yang Zhao, Heran Yang, William Holtz and Kirkland Burthey.

A mobile advertising application that shows interesting ads only when apps are loading won first place in the Cornell Entrepreneur Organization's Elevator Pitch Competition Nov. 16.

AdPear, a company founded by three computer science and two business students, offers mobile phone users entertaining pairs of pictures and the option to choose between the ad they like the most, offering intelligent analytics and feedback systems to advertisers, said Paul Yang '12, one of the team members.

"We're serious about our idea," he said. "And we've explored the market by talking to companies and developers."

Yang thought of the idea this past summer during an internship with Google AdSense, but developed it further during the recent 3 Day Startup event held at Cornell earlier this month.

The pitch competition, an annual event, included 15 contestants who were selected from a pool of applicants to present their unique business idea in no more than 90 seconds to a panel of six judges. The event is meant to replicate the experience of "riding an elevator" with an executive or venture capitalist, having only that limited time in riding the elevator to pitch your idea.

The event was sponsored by Entrepreneurship@Cornell and the Student Agencies eLab.

Yang Zhao '13 took second place in the competition with Aurora Education, a learning platform to teach Advanced Placement curriculum courses to high school students who may not have access to such resources. Jennifer Heumann '13 won third place for the Ice Cream Scooper, a device with a vibrating mechanism that allows the scooper to grasp hard, frozen ice cream.

"Entrepreneurs who are most successful are those who are inspiring to those around them," said Will Holtz '12, president of the Cornell Entrepreneur Organization. "Having a strong elevator pitch is crucial since the inspirational aspect is clearly demonstrated when you are able to blend your ideas into a unified, successful pitch."

For his efforts, Yang won a first prize of $200, second prize was $125 and third was $75.

Judges for the event included Jennifer Nelson, program coordinator, Cornell International Institute of Food, Agriculture and Development; John Callister, senior lecturer and director of the Harvey Kinzelberg Entrepreneurship in Engineering Program; Samuel Nelson, assistant professor, director of forensics in the ILR School and senior lecturer; Gen Furukawa, MBA '12; Carlos Castro, MBA '13; and Paul Strebel, accounting lecturer and a partner at the Strebel Planning Group in Ithaca.

Kathy Hovis is a writer/editor for Entrepreneurship@Cornell.