Tuesday, February 3, 2026

Media Contact:
Stephen Howard | Director of Marketing & Communications | 405-744-4363 | stephen.howard@okstate.edu

After months of preparation, student entrepreneurs at Oklahoma State University were
rewarded for pitching their original business ideas to industry experts.

The Riata Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship concluded the annual Riata Business Plan Competition on Jan. 30, awarding a total of $40,500 in scholarship money to finalists. 

Open to OSU students of all majors, the competition promotes entrepreneurship and
small business development by showcasing student-created, -managed and -owned ventures.
Students receive feedback from a panel of judges, deliver elevator pitches to a live
audience and compete for scholarship money to help fund their ventures.

A student accepts a scholarship award.Riata Center director Chad Mills (right) presents MBA student Kevin Kuteesa with the
Richard L. Tourtellotte Family Scholarship.

Participants first had to submit their executive summaries for review in November.
The selected finalists then competed in January across four tracks: Main Street Lifestyles,
Big City High Tech, Social Enterprise and Rising Entrepreneur. The Rising Entrepreneur
category includes participants who won scholarship money in a previous Riata Business
Plan Competition. 

The competition also featured the presentation of the 2026 Richard L. Tourtellotte Family Scholarship to Kevin Kuteesa. The $3,000 award includes naming recognition on a bench in the
Tourtellotte Family Garden on the Business Building’s north side.

Here are the 2026 Riata Business Plan Competition winners: 

Main Street Lifestyles

First: Plenish Pouches – Wyatt Nantz, Luke Nantz, Tyler Reynolds

Second: Az-Tec, LLC – Steven Azzaro

Third: Crescendo Guitar – Charles Christe

Big City High Tech

First: PLUS – Amit Navare, Ujjval Patel

Second: Traditions AI – Racheal Appiah-Kubi

Third: EntrepreneursEat – Thomas Kettles

Social Enterprise

First: MonConnect Uganda – Nicholas Ssebalamu

Second: Prograte Capital Ventures – Kevin Kuteesa

Rising Entrepreneur

First: Scivince – Soroosh Farsiani, Mahla Hosseini

Best Elevator Pitch

Plenish Pouches – Wyatt Nantz, Luke Nantz, Tyler Reynolds

Richard L. Tourtellotte Family Scholarship 

Prograte Capital Ventures – Kevin Kuteesa

Finalists

Turbo Shoe – Hamed Hemmati, Navya Bandaru, Jared Fimple

HipAI – Noah Duncan

CycloDynamics – Thulasi Veggalam, Nabia Fardin

ReagX – Prince Jhandai

Looklike – Landon Bakhsh

Noesis – Amit Mishra

Housed in the Spears School of Business, the Riata Center is OSU’s go-to hub for innovation and entrepreneurship. Visit the
website to learn more.