Students Win Pitch Dingman Competition

Pavan Turaga and Nitesh Shroff, two graduate students advised by Professor Rama Chellappa, recently won $2,500 in start-up funding at the University of Maryland's Pitch Dingman Competition. In addition to edging out the other student teams presenting at the competition, Pavan and Nitesh also received a $250 audience choice award for their presentation, titled "Video Precis."

Summarizing long, unconstrained videos is gaining importance in surveillance, web-based video browsing, and video-archival. Summarizing a video requires the identification of key aspects which contain the essence of the video. In their presentation, Pavan Turaga and Nitesh Shroff proposed a novel approach for video summarization. The students also presented their "Video Precis" technology at ECE Research Review Day on October 9.

Pitch Dingman is a program sponsored by the University of Maryland's Dingman Center for Entrepreneurship aimed at students who want to explore the opportunity to create, own and operate their own business. The Dingman Center team makes its professional investment staff and Entrepreneurs in Residence available to hear and evaluate new business ideas. Students give a brief, five-minute persuasive overview of their idea and receive actionable feedback from the Dingman Center staff, along with a chance to win $2,500 on the last Friday of every month.

Additionally, students demonstrating the highest level of passion and ability to start their own business may apply for incubation support from the Dingman Center. Students chosen to incubate their start-up at the Dingman Center are eligible to receive funding from the Smith E-Fund, which makes discretionary investments in select new ventures.

For more information about the Pitch Dingman Competition, please visit: http://www.rhsmith.umd.edu/Dingman/programs/pitch/

Published November 1, 2009