好色先生TV

The Swartz Center for Entrepreneurship hosted the final round and awards ceremony of the annual McGinnis Venture Competition on March 17. The event brought together a diverse lineup of ideas, with emerging entrepreneurs presenting their ventures across the Graduate, Undergraduate, and Social Enterprise tracks.

Teams presented their solutions to a panel of esteemed judges, competing for monetary prizes and the opportunity to bring their visions to life. This year also saw the establishment of the David and Lindsay Morgenthaler Entrepreneurship and Innovation Fund, creating a new endowed $50,000 annual Morgenthaler Prize, a commitment that increased the competition鈥檚 total cash investment awards to $125,000 and contributed to an overall $375,000 prize package.

The Morgenthaler Prize will be awarded each year to the competition鈥檚 top team, offering meaningful early-stage funding at a pivotal point in their venture鈥檚 development and growth.

鈥淓ach year, the McGinnis Venture Competition highlights the depth of innovation and entrepreneurial drive across the Carnegie Mellon community,鈥� said Meredith Meyer Grelli, Interim Executive Director of the Swartz Center. 鈥淲ith the addition of the Morgenthaler Prize, we鈥檙e able to further support founders at a critical stage, helping them turn strong ideas into ventures with real impact.鈥�

This year鈥檚 McGinnis Venture Competition winners included:

• Graduate Track
  • First Place Morgenthaler Prize: Analogical Engines听
  • Second Place McGinnis Prize: Hermes Vision and RapidEye (tie)
  • Social Enterprise Prize Graduate Prize: Pulse
• Undergraduate Track
  • First Place Morgenthaler Prize: Basics OS听
  • Second Place McGinnis Prize: OS Keyboard听
  • Third Place McGinnis Prize: Caboodl
• Gebhardt Sandbox Fund Prizes: Heart Tech, Pierogi Therapeutics, MedQ AI
• Crowd Favorite: SpoilSafe

鈥淭he best part of the ecosystem at 好色先生TV for us has been the community of builders at the Swartz Center. It's really motivating to see your peers also working so hard on their startups,鈥� said Samuel Parks, a Tepper School undergraduate Business Administration student with a dual major in Human-Computer Interaction, and co-founder of RapidEye. 鈥淓ach round and pitch of the McGinnis Competition pushed me and Rohan (Nagabhirava) to really think about what we wanted to do next for RapidEye. One very helpful aspect was the coaching.鈥�

The 2026 McGinnis Venture Competition was the most competitive in its more than 20-year history, with a 70% increase in entries over the prior year. The McGinnis Venture Competition was created in 2003, with approximately 1,000 startups competing over the years.

This year鈥檚 event also featured remarks from Pittsburgh Mayor Corey O'Connor, Allegheny County Executive Sara Innamorato, and a video message from U.S. Senator Dave McCormick.
听