HATCH pitch competition day is tomorrow!  We can hardly wait to hear from all of our wonderfully talented finalists at SXSW on Monday morning.  As we all get ready for the big day, read on for our final installment of our judges’ introductions, and we hope to see you all in Austin very soon!

Welcome to our third installment of our judges series!  Competition day is quickly approaching and we wish luck to all of our talented finalists.  Until then though, sit back and get a little more familiar with our incredibly accomplished judges!

It’s time to meet more of our judge’s panel for HATCH pitch 2015!  We’ll be at SXSW Interactive on March 16th for competition day - less than two weeks away!  Read up on who will be there to judge our talented finalists:

HATCH pitch is so excited to welcome such a dynamic panel of judges to the 2015 competition!  We know they’re eager to hear from all of our finalists at SXSW Interactive on March 16th, and we’d like to take a moment and let you get to know them before the big day!

We had a really amazing time at SXSW, although the best story is the fact that I was still a grad student at UCLA and this was during finals week.  So I literally flew in on a redeye late the night before, slept in the airport, snuck into the hotel spa where I took a shower, and then presented only after convincing another team to help me advance my slides.  I then went home right after on a train to San Antonio and then cheapest return flight.  I really didn't get to enjoy much but I did have phenomenal conversations and met great people.

It was really exciting for our team, getting invited to present at SXSW at HATCH pitch 2013, and to see that teams around the country were chosen.  We were really flattered to be able to be there.  We were initially a little trepidatious about it.  We knew some of the judges could be very tough.  We were not sure whether the judges or the audience would understand the niche for the energy space we were in.  Fortunately for us, we were able to simplify the message such that we got the point across, so even judges not in this space recognized the significant opportunity.