CORTLAND, NY (607NewsNow) — During Innovation Day at SUNY Cortland, local businessman Adam Weitsman acted as a judge and provided a total $45,000 to six startups.

Held on May 28th, Innovation Day gave students the ability to pitch business ideas that they had developed over the course of the academic year. While judges conferred about who to name as winners of the competition, Weitsman (owner and chief executive officer of Upstate Shredding – Weitsman Recycling) decided he wanted to award $10,000 to the top three groups and $5,000 each for the remaining three. 

Photo of Weitsman (center right) meeting with a student during SUNY Cortland’s Innovation Day. Photo courtesy of Brian Bosch.

The winning startups are as follows:

  • Next Life Junk Removal – $10,000: Sophomore Ryan Craig’s startup is a junk culling service that picks up loads of recyclable materials and sorts the refuse for donation, recycling or scrap.
  • Rockwood by Vinci – $10,000: Senior Dominic Vinci plans to combine woodcraft and stone elements to create custom, high-end furniture using 3D modeling and laser cutting technology. He plans to launch his business this summer with help from the startup funding.
  • Shred Air – $10,000: Sophomore Bryan Sredniawski, junior Nicholas Bliss, senior Lyndsey Hillenbrandt, senior Esteban Mitchell, and senior Morgan Shelvin have teamed up to bring Sredniawski’s idea for a personal use fan with an automated cleaning system that removes dust and bacteria from its blade to life.
  • Throwing Shade – $5,000: Senior Jayden Lont runs an established business that he started last year and developed in his entrepreneurship classes at SUNY Cortland. His business rents chairs, tents and other items to visitors on Topsail Island, in North Carolina, hoping to take the business nationwide.
  • Scrap Fit – $5,000: Junior Luka Kvizhinadze, junior Thomas Wheeler, senior Justin Womeldorph, and senior Christopher Youngs teamed up to create a business that makes workout equipment from junkyard leftovers.
  • Motion – $5,000: Senior Jonathan Finewood developed an app inspired by behavior economics that allows users to bet on themselves to accomplish a goal. A user sets a goal, such as consistent exercise, and if they don’t succeed, they lose the bet. A portion of that money is paid to the app, the rest going to support users who successfully accomplished their set goal.

The judging panel for the startups consisted of Weitsman, SUNY Cortland President Erik J. Bitterbaum, and Diana Lawson ’76, dean of the Seidman College of Business at Grand Valley State University and a Cortland College Foundation board member.

“I’m always impressed when that light bulb goes off, they get to this phase of actually accomplishing it and they’re excited about it,” Wilson said. “It becomes part of their identity.  

“They kind of live with this stuff throughout the semester, and they finally get a chance to be on stage and deliver it,” said James Wilson, lecturer of economics who emceed the event. “I’m impressed by what the students have done.”

Read a full recap of this year’s Innovation Day at SUNY Cortland here.