GEA/GAIN Alumni Pitch Competition

 

Alumni bring Georgetown’s spirit of innovation to life in Puerto Rico

On a sunny afternoon in San Juan, Puerto Rico, Georgetown alumni came together to celebrate the ideas, ambition, and purpose that define the Hoya entrepreneurial spirit.

The Georgetown Entrepreneurship Alliance and Georgetown Angel Investor Network hosted the 9th Alumni Pitch Competition on April 18, 2026, at the Condado Vanderbilt Hotel during John Carroll Weekend Puerto Rico. The annual competition brought together over 100 alumni, investors, and friends for a Shark Tank style event featuring companies created and led by Georgetown alumni.

Celebrating alumni entrepreneurs

The event showcased more than new business ventures—it highlighted alumni using innovation to respond to real world needs and carry Georgetown’s mission into the world in tangible ways. Each finalist started with a simple question: what is not working as well as it should, and how can we build something better?

Isabel Sheinman (C’13), Maka Media
What if children’s media was measured not just by clicks and views, but by what it contributes to a child’s development? Maka Media is building an AI-powered system to evaluate the developmental quality of children’s content.

Jessica Boccardo (G’06) and AndrĂ©s SatizĂĄbal, NextMinder
What if companies could understand how people might respond before a product, price, or message reaches the market? NextMinder uses AI-powered synthetic populations to simulate real consumer behavior before launch.

Bradford Crist (SFS’12), ChargeMate
What if EV charging networks could fix problems before they frustrate drivers? ChargeMate uses AI to diagnose and resolve failures across EV charging networks in real time.

Together, their pitches reflected the underpinning of Georgetown’s unique brand of entrepreneurship: that companies can align purpose and profit to advance the common good.

Sheinman, founder of Maka Media, was named the winner of this year’s competition and received a $100,000 pooled investment prize from members of the Georgetown Angel Investor Network. All finalists will also have the opportunity to present to GAIN’s broader network of more than 150 investors.

The Hoya spirit of giving back

The competition was guided by a panel of esteemed alumni judges who brought thoughtful questions to the competition, helping each finalist show not only what they were building, but why it mattered.

The competition was judged by Heather Galloway (SFS’98), Devon George (B’01), Russell Inman (B’95, SCS’97, Parent’27), Maureen McIvor (C’91, Parent’22, ’26, ’28), and Matthew Rizzo (C’97). Peter Mellen (C’89, MBA’98, Parent’26, ’28), President of the Georgetown Entrepreneurship Alliance, emceed the event. Julia Farr (C’88, Parent’19, ’21, ’24), Executive Director of the Georgetown University Alumni Association, opened the program with welcoming remarks.

Continuing a Georgetown tradition

Now in its ninth year, the Alumni Pitch Competition continues to remind us that innovation begins with people brave enough to believe that what they are building can make life better for others. In Puerto Rico, that Georgetown spirit was on full display. Thank you to the generous sponsors and vendors who helped make this year’s Alumni Pitch Competition possible!

 

About the companies

  • NextMinder

    NextMinder builds AI-powered “synthetic populations” that simulate how real consumers behave, allowing companies to test decisions such as pricing, product features, and messaging before launching in the real world. By combining large-scale data, behavioral modeling, and AI agents, NextMinder enables faster, more cost-effective, and more predictive market insights across the U.S. and Latin America.

  • ChargeMate AI

    ChargeMate is the AI reliability platform for distributed energy infrastructure. The company’s software automatically diagnoses and resolves failures across EV charging networks—where 1 in 4 public charging sessions fail today—replacing expensive call centers and manual troubleshooting with AI that resolves over 90% of issues in real time.

    ChargeMate is live with 5 customers including Mercedes-Benz High Power Charging and Hypercharge, generating ~$150K ARR with 85-90% gross margins. The company has a $6.3M qualified pipeline that includes names like Francis Energy, ChargePoint, Blink, EVgo, and Walmart, with a clear path to $1.5M ARR from ~20 logos.

    The platform’s data network effects—spanning 200+ hardware SKUs, thousands of driver interactions, and cross-network fault resolution data—create compounding advantages that no single operator or software vendor can replicate. ChargeMate is raising a $2M SAFE at a $13M post-money cap to scale the team, deepen integrations, and expand from its EV charging beachhead into adjacent distributed energy assets like solar, batteries, and building systems—a $50B+ software opportunity.

  • Maka Media

    Maka Media is building the first AI-powered system for measuring the developmental quality of children’s content, closing the gap between what children consume digitally and what child development science says is actually good for them. Launching in Spring 2026 as an iOS streaming app for families of children ages 0–6, Maka gives parents access to healthy, developmentally aligned content, backed by research partnerships with the Yale Child Study Center and Harvard. Founded by leaders with deep expertise in children’s media, technology, and child development, the company recently closed an oversubscribed pre-seed round and has built a waitlist of 2,000+ families ahead of launch. Headquartered in the Midwest with an innovation hub in San Francisco, Maka is focused on becoming the infrastructure layer for children’s digital wellbeing: enabling parents, platforms, and creators to evaluate and surface content at scale, based on what kids truly need to thrive.

Sponsorship Opportunities

Are you or your company interested in sponsoring the GEA/GAIN Alumni Pitch Competition? Your support plays a vital role in growing entrepreneurship at Georgetown. By supporting the GEA/GAIN Alumni Pitch Competition, sponsors will have the opportunity to connect with successful and influential alumni from around the world and countless fellow alumni entrepreneurs. Guests at GEA/GAIN events include CEOs, venture capitalists, academic leaders, entrepreneurs, and investors. Sponsors of the GEA/GAIN Alumni Pitch Competition will also be recognized as sponsors of the Georgetown University Alumni Association’s John Carroll Weekend.

If you are interested in sponsoring next year’s Alumni Pitch Competition please contact alliances@georgetown.edu.

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