{"id":250354,"date":"2026-04-15T03:49:09","date_gmt":"2026-04-15T03:49:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/250354\/"},"modified":"2026-04-15T03:49:09","modified_gmt":"2026-04-15T03:49:09","slug":"ut-dallas-students-win-record-prizes-in-shark-tank-style-pitch-competition","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/250354\/","title":{"rendered":"UT Dallas students win record prizes in &#8220;Shark Tank&#8221;-style pitch competition"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Students and alumni at <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cbsnews.com\/texas\/tag\/ut-dallas\/\" target=\"_blank\" data-invalid-url-rewritten-http=\"\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">UT Dallas<\/a> stepped into a different kind of tank Monday night \u2013 a &#8220;Shark Tank&#8221;-style pitch competition where only the sharpest ideas survived.<\/p>\n<p>The event, officially called the Draper Pitch Competition, brought together three finalist teams of undergraduates, graduate students, and alumni. Their concepts ranged from AI\u2011powered tools for lifeguards to a voice\u2011activated alert system.<\/p>\n<p>A panel of expert judges heard each pitch before selecting the winners.<\/p>\n<p>What the winners said<\/p>\n<p>Dean Ahmed, the undergraduate winner, said the pressure of the stage was real.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Obviously, the nerves were there,&#8221; Ahmed said. &#8220;\u2026 I knew my competitors were just as good as me, so I just left it up to the odds, tried my best, and it panned out well.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Sina Khorsandi, who won the alumni category, said the journey took an unexpected turn.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I didn&#8217;t make it to the finals,&#8221; Khorsandi said. &#8220;I&#8217;m kind of glad I didn&#8217;t because then I wouldn&#8217;t be eligible for the check now\u2026 It&#8217;s been a long process and very exciting.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Record prize money<\/p>\n<p>This year&#8217;s competition awarded its largest prize pool ever:<\/p>\n<p>$50,000 for first place$30,000 for second$20,000 for third<\/p>\n<p class=\"content__tags__label\">In:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Students and alumni at UT Dallas stepped into a different kind of tank Monday night \u2013 a &#8220;Shark&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":250355,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[430,27,29,28,6050],"class_list":{"0":"post-250354","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-texas","8":"tag-north-texas","9":"tag-texas","10":"tag-texas-headlines","11":"tag-texas-news","12":"tag-ut-dallas"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/250354","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=250354"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/250354\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/250355"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=250354"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=250354"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=250354"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}