Costello College of Business partnerships are creating experiential learning opportunities for our students.
Patriot Pitch Competition 2025
Presented by:
The Patriot Pitch Competition supports ideas and early-stage business ventures and is open to current George Mason students and recent alumni from all majors/fields of study.
Students and recent alumni: If you have an idea and a desire to launch a new business, enter to compete for a chance to win a share of this year’s $50,000 Patriot Pitch Competition prize money. See the competition eligibility guidelines to learn more.
The Patriot Pitch Competition is led by the Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship at the Costello College of Business. Semi-finalist teams will participate in mentoring sessions and entrepreneurship training sessions between March 3 and April 9. Semi-finalists will present their pitches virtually on April 3 between 11 a.m. and 3 p.m. Finalists will be chosen after the semi-final presentations and will make their pitches in front of a live audience on Thursday, April 10 at the Johnson Center Bistro on the Fairfax Campus.
Faculty, staff, and members of the business community: If you want to mentor a team, coach a practice pitch, or judge pitches during the competition, we would love your support. Learn more about competition volunteer opportunities, or encourage students to participate with these promotional materials.
$50K
in total prizes, with awards in each track:
- $8,000 for first
- $2,000 for second
- $5,000 for Mason's choice
Keynote Speaker:
Sid Banerjee: Technology Founder and Executive
Over a nearly 30 year career Sid Banerjee has amassed deep skills building companies and solutions based on customer experience (CX), business intelligence (BI), and AI-powered technologies.
He serves as Chief Strategy Officer of Medallia, a customer experience (CX) software company that uses AI and machine learning to help businesses improve customer satisfaction. He also serves as Chairman at Prolific, a high growth technology company providing a platform for high-quality, human-derived AI and research models.
Sid Banerjee was Founder, and served as CEO, Chairman, and Chief Strategy Officer at Clarabridge, acquired by Qualtrics in September 2021 for $1.125 billion, and he served as Chief XM Strategy Officer at Qualtrics until January 2024.
He was a founding employee of Business Intelligence vendor MicroStrategy, and founder/CEO of BI services company Claraview (acquired by Teradata in 2008). He also held executive and management positions at Ernst & Young and Sprint. He holds a BS/MS in Electrical Engineering from MIT. He presently lives in Washington DC with his wife, and has two college age children.
Thank you to our 2025 Sponsors!
Track Sponsors
Pre-Pitch Sponsor
If you are interested in learning more about becoming a sponsor for the 2025 Patriot Pitch Competition, please email Katie Parkes Greene.
Dates and Deadlines
- Application deadline is February 21
- Semi-Finalists will be notified by March 3
- Semi-Finalists participate in 4-6 45-minute mentoring/feedback sessions and entrepreneurship training sessions between March 3 and April 9
- Semi-Finalists will present pitches virtually on April 3; finalists will be announced afterward
- Finalists will have final mentorship sessions and pitch practices April 4-9
- Finalists will present pitches in-person on April 10
Assemble your team and create your pitch.
Competition Tracks
Applications will be reviewed by a panel of entrepreneurship experts, who will select up to 4 semi-finalist teams for each track.
Volunteer Opportunities
Faculty, staff, and members of the business community: If you want to mentor a team, coach a team as they perfect their pitch leading up to the semi-final and final rounds, or judge pitches during the semi-final and final competitions, we would love your support. To learn more about competition volunteer opportunities, email ciemason@gmu.edu. You can also encourage students to participate with the downloads below.
Download Resources
Spread the word about the Patriot Pitch competition to your students!