NATCHITOCHES, La. — Students from Bossier City and Shreveport are among six Northwestern State University students representing five business concepts in the final round of the 2026 Inferno Pitch competition Nov. 11.
The competition, hosted by NSU’s College of Business and Technology, will award $4,500 in cash prizes and professional services to help students develop their businesses.
Kelly Guillory of Bossier City will present Balanced Budget Baskets. Shepherd Brooks Benson of Shreveport and Samuel Brunson of Natchitoches will present CrawCycle Solutions.
Other finalists are Silet Gray of Stony Hill, Jamaica, with Campus Marketplace; Santiago Sanchez of Villamaria, Colombia, with GeoFin; and Valeria Botero Ocampo of Pereira, Colombia, with AURA.
The final pitch event will take place from 9:30 a.m. to noon in the David Morgan Auditorium, Room 107 of Russell Hall. It is open to the public.
Each finalist team will have 10 minutes to present its business model to a panel of judges, followed by a five-minute question-and-answer session.
First place will receive $3,000, second place will receive $1,000 and third place will receive $500. Each of the top three finishers also will receive six months of professional services from the Entrepreneurial Accelerator Program, a division of BRF.
Judges will include Gwen Taylor Fontenot, NSU’s director of institutional engagement and economic development; Matthew Gamble, entrepreneur, Collins & Gamble co-founder and 2023 Pelican Cup winner; Leslie Oglesby, manager of economic development and research at the Natchitoches Area Chamber of Commerce; Brandon G. Pang, a member of Bradley Murchinson; Joanna Washington, vice president, senior deposit operation specialist and branch manager at City Bank & Trust Company; and Natchitoches Mayor Ronnie Williams Jr.
Sponsored by EAP, Inferno Pitch is open to NSU business students with proposed businesses in any industry. Participants receive coaching from industry experts and experience developing business models, preparing pitches and exploring the capital-raising process.
The event also will be livestreamed through Webex at nsu.la/InfernoPitchWebex. The meeting number is 2490 973 4787, and the password is Hottestidea26!
For more information, contact Weiwen Liao, associate professor and Inferno Pitch coordinator, at 318-357-5692 or [email protected].