Pitching the Future
by Russell Rankin
The Hankamer School of Business at Baylor University hosted the inaugural AI Venture Challenge on Oct. 21, 2025, at the Paul L. Foster Campus for Business and Innovation. More than 60 submissions addressing actual consumer problems were originally submitted to the competition by students representing majors across the university. The top 10 finalists pitched their tech-driven solutions to a panel of judges.
“The AI Venture Challenge sits at the intersection of innovation, entrepreneurship and artificial intelligence,” said Dr. David M. Szymanski, the William E. Crenshaw Endowed Dean of HSB. “I was impressed by the students’ ingenuity and their critical thinking as they proposed their answers to real-world challenges.”
Judges gave the top award of $3,000 to Christopher Ratana-Kelley, a senior Finance and MIS major from Danville, California; and Ava Truan, a junior Professional Selling and Entrepreneurship major from Cypress, Texas, for their proposal “Zoneit.AI,” a software venture designed to solve zoning and permitting delays in real estate development.
According to Ratana-Kelley and Truan, real estate developers, architects and municipalities lose millions of dollars and months of productivity each year because of manual, outdated processes that slow down approvals and create uncertainty. The team designed Zoneit.AI to turn an outdated process into a streamlined, automated system that accelerates decision-making, improves compliance and reduces costs.
The second-place prize of $1,500 was awarded to Casey McCabe, a sophomore Business student from Las Vegas; and Zach Hayton, a junior Business Fellows and Professional Selling student from Kirkland, Washington, for their AI project “Prism,” a machine-learning media-bias detector designed to perform real-time fact-checking, detect rhetorical bias, flag AI-generated text, watermark deepfake videos, and identify logical fallacies and manipulative framing for online media consumers.
The third-place award of $500 went to Zanea Ali, a freshman Data Science major from Hyderabad, India; Aarah Sardesai, a senior Bioinformatics major from Cedar Park, Texas; and Victor Cruz, a sophomore Computer Science major from Seabrook, Texas, for “Atom(os) AI,” a generative AI platform designed to speed the development of new and optimal materials through predictive AI models trained on chemistry and physics data.
Judges gave Ethan Hampton, a sophomore Business Scholar student from Mansfield, Texas, a special “Epsilon Award,” and $1,000, for demonstrating excellence in AI application. His project, “AI College Advisor,” is a two-part AI advising system designed to improve both the student and advisor experience, while directly supporting the retention goals of the University.
