The 2026 pitch season at Portland State University has officially come to a close—and this year’s competitions delivered an incredible showcase of creativity, purpose, and real-world impact.
From addressing environmental challenges to improving everyday experiences, our student innovators stepped up with ideas built to make a difference.
🌟 Grand Prize: PGE Foundation Impact Award
This year marked the first-ever PGE Foundation “Powering Impact” Award, celebrating a student venture with the potential to create meaningful, community-centered environmental impact. We’re thrilled to have PGE Foundation join us in recognizing and supporting student innovators in this way.
✨ EquAirity — David Castro
PGE Foundation Impact Award ($2,000)
Leading this year’s Cleantech Challenge is EquAirity, recognized with the PGE Foundation Impact Award for its outstanding potential to create meaningful, community-driven environmental impact.
Cleantech Challenge
After 10 weeks of innovation, mentorship, and pitching, students presented solutions tackling some of today’s most pressing environmental issues.
🏆 1st Place: Shiddie Gear ($1,500)
Piper Easton
Designs technical outdoor apparel using modern fit-mapping and human-centered design to solve the long-standing issue of ill-fitting gear for sailors, skiers, and outdoor athletes.
🥈 2nd Place: EquAirity ($1,000)
David Castro
A low-cost, modular air quality sensor and adaptive filtration unit bringing accessible, clean air to communities that need it most.
🥉 3rd Place: DryBox ($500)
Biniyam Mossie
A low-temperature countertop dehydrator and shredder that reduces food waste moisture, helping minimize methane emissions in landfills.
Everyday Entrepreneurship Pitch Competition
The Everyday Entrepreneurship Pitch Competition showcased practical, creative solutions designed to improve everyday life.
🏆 1st Place: The Final Rose ($1,500)
Eric Asakawa, Evangeline Van, Owen Swifter
An improv-based tabletop card game inspired by reality TV dating shows, designed to help people gain dating experience in a safe, structured environment while reducing anxiety through playful interaction.
🥈 2nd Place: Mentor Centaur ($1,000)
Bo Han Hurt
A structured leadership platform for university peer mentors, providing lesson-planning guides, facilitation tools, and engagement tracking to create more intentional sessions and consistent student outcomes.
🥉 3rd Place: Cultured Care ($500)
Steffannie R.
A practice management tool for clinicians and community advocates serving communities of color and trauma survivors, addressing gaps in systems that often overlook culture, identity, and trauma-informed workflows.
Looking Ahead
These competitions are more than just pitch events—they’re a launchpad for the next generation of innovators and changemakers.
Thank you to our judges, attendees, partners, and supporters for making these events possible—and congratulations to all of our student founders.
Join us in celebrating these outstanding innovators from Portland State University!
A special thank you to our inaugural partners, the PGE Foundation, for their incredible support in making this event possible! We’re so grateful for their partnership and commitment to student innovation.
Next up: InventOR 2026, where student innovators from across the state will compete for $10,000 in prizes—we can’t wait to see what ideas they bring to the stage!