LFHS Pitch Night 2024

Business Incubator & Accelerator Students On Their Experience

Pitch Night 2024 * May 22, 2024 * 7PM * LFHS Auditorium

This year's Business Incubator students, teachers, and volunteers have been working hard. Innovative and new business ideas have surfaced. Teams have been busy developing business ideas, networking, creating prototypes, pivoting as needed, learning through the MVP process, and putting together pitches to tell their stories. We are proud to give them a platform to share their ideas with our community in the hopes of attracting investors and raising much needed start up capital through donations and investments. Academic Pitches took place on May 8 & May 9. 16 Teams competed for a spot on the Pitch Night stage by delivering Academic Pitches. At that time our panel of judges determined which teams would move on to Pitch Night.. 

At the event the teams moving forward will present their pitches to the community. We will hear from one of our 2023 Pitch Night Teams, UV-PC. They will give us an update on their business and we've invited their additional mentors and supporters the Potempa Brothers of Twin Image, Inc to share their experience over the past couple years working with teams in our program..  We are thrilled to bring this "Shark Tank" style event to LFHS's  RMA (Raymond Moore Auditorium).  2024 Best Pitch and Foundation Cup winners will be announced along with funding allocations from the LFHS Foundation Partnership prize pool. One exciting aspect of this event is that the community at large has the opportunity to support these teams through donations to the teams of their choice via this event website. We also have an INVESTOR FORM available so potential investors can pledge support for any of the teams, if they wish to make a more substantial investment with the expectation of a return on that investment. 

We hope that everyone will JOIN US on May 22nd for Pitch Night 2024.   It should be an exciting evening filled with the enthusiasm, hope and promise of LFHS student teams who are working so hard to get their businesses up and running. 

INVESTING IN EDUCATIONAL EXCELLENCE PAYS OFF

The LFHS Foundation partnered with Lake Forest High School in the fall of 2014 to create the Business Incubator. This Junior level Honors course in the Business Department offers students a unique opportunity to become true entrepreneurs by creating and developing their own product or service. Students are coached and mentored by entrepreneurs and business experts from our community and beyond. During the year long course, student teams learn about ideation, marketing, accounting, human resources, as well as the legal and financial aspects of running a business. To further inspire creativity, a customized classroom called the Innovation Incubator has been designed to ignite brainstorming and foster collaboration as students develop products and services for the real world. "Think of a problem that needs solving, and you've got the beginnings of a new business idea," is what instructor Joe Pulio says at the beginning of each new year in BI.  The course culminates in Pitch Night, a Shark-Tank style event where select student teams have the opportunity to present their innovative ideas to a Board of Directors for the chance to earn prize money for their businesses. Teams that are awarded funding during Pitch Night then have the option to continue on with the process of starting up their business during the next year by enrolling in the Business Accelerator - a Senior level Honors business class.  More information about the Business Incubator program is available at www.lfhsfoundation.org/business-incubator.html.

The Lake Forest High School Foundation proudly invests in educational excellence at LFHS to support, enrich, and enhance the educational experience for all students, faculty, and staff. Our partnership with the Business Incubator program and our grants have a positive and lasting impact at our high school. Please enjoy the video below to learn more.