Courtesy / UMaine Business Challenge
Lily Hogan, left, and Isabel Adler took home the second-place prize of $1,000 with their outdoor company Ruggette.
April 11, 2019
UMaine Business Challenge announces winners of the 8th annual pitch contest
Courtesy / UMaine Business Challenge
Maxwell Burtis from the University of Maine won both the 2019 first-place prize of $5,000 and the $10,000 innovation prize with his company Ferda Farms LLC.
By Staff
An aquaculture company using innovation to farm oysters in Maine is among the winners of the 2019 UMaine Business Challenge presented by Business Lending Solutions this past weekend at the University of Maine in Orono.
Business Lending Solutions awarded $16,000 in cash and prizes to collegiate entrepreneurs in the annual pitch contest. Started in 2011, the UMaine Business Challenge has now awarded over $100,000 to more than 20 college students over eight years of competitions.
Maxwell Burtis from the University of Maine won both the 2019 first-place prize of $5,000 and the $10,000 innovation prize with his company Ferda Farms LLC. Isabel Adler and Lily Hogan from Colby College took home the second-place prize of $1,000 with their outdoor company Ruggette.
Burtis, a freshman mechanical engineering student at UMaine, won the $10,000 Innovations Prize sponsored by UMaine alumni Bruce Fournier and the Fournier Family Foundation. The innovation prize is specifically designed for companies presenting a new innovation or technology as part of their business model. Burtis is currently working on a patent-pending technology that will reinvent the traditional hopper used during the oyster harvesting process.
With this prize, Ferda Farms LLC will receive $5,000 up front and then an additional $5,000 upon the completion of milestones set by Burtis, Bruce Fournier and the UMaine Business Challenge Advisory Board.
“These prizes are huge for the expansion of our oyster farm and continued innovation along Maine's coast,” said Burtis. “The competition is giving Ferda Farms the opportunity we have long dreamed of: to buy more cages, quahog seed and solar panels, allowing us to continue to improve Maine's waters, and revitalize Maine's changing fisheries with aquaculture."
Other members of his team include Chris Burtis, Sam Dorval, and Max Friedman, along with advisors from the UMaine Foster Center for Student Innovation, the Maine School of Marine Sciences, the Maine Sea Grant and Mere Point Oyster Co.
In a news release, Ferda Farms said its mission is to improve aquaculture in Maine through research and innovation, noting it is developing automation devices to increase effciciency and quality of farmed oysters.
Outdoor company takes second prize
Ruggette, a woman’s outdoor company led by Isabel Adler and Lily Hogan, took home the $1,000 second place prize. Adler and Hogan, sophomores at Colby College in Waterville, are avid adventurers who discovered a problem with woman’s outdoor gear through their own experiences. The problem, they discovered, is that there isn’t enough woman’s outdoor gear on the market and they have often had to shop in the men’s section in order to obtain high-quality outdoor gear.
“Our mission is to support empowered women in the outdoors by providing women with the high quality, environmentally sustainable gear they deserve,” Adler said. “ Receiving the support of the UMaine Business Challenge, both financially and through mentorship, will help us to scale Ruggette and grow to our full potential.”
"It has been incredibly encouraging to receive support for the direction Isabel and I have taken the company,” Hogan added.
Don Smith of Business Lending Solutions gave a nod to what he said were the “many talented students competing in this year’s UMaine Business Challenge."
“It was a privilege and great honor to be a part of the UMaine Business Challenge again this year. I was again amazed by the incredibly talented and gifted young students,” he said. “What a great event that I hope to be a part of for a long time to come.”
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