Raptor Tank Business Pitch Competition | Montgomery College, Maryland

2018 Raptor Tank Winner Caroline Ta

2023 Raptor Tank Competition

The Macklin Business Institute (MBI) and the Montgomery College Business program, together with the MC ENACTUS Chapter, are excited to bring you two Raptor Tank Business Competitions for the first time ever in one academic year. Our competition will be held on Wednesday, March 29th, 2023 in the Finance Lab at the Montgomery College Rockville campus.

Montgomery College Facebook Live event pagenew window (https://bit.ly/fb-raptor-tank-e)
2020 Raptor Tank Virtual Competitionnew window (https://bit.ly/raptor-tank-e)

The Raptor Tank business pitch competition is back for our 10th annual competition! Like any good business, we consistently review our program each year to ensure we are meeting the ever-changing needs of Montgomery College student participants. Based on our review, we are introducing several program changes to open up Raptor Tank so that more MC students can get involved in this experiential learning initiative. In addition, Raptor Tank will continue providing participants the opportunity to learn how to develop their business ideas and earn a chance to win cash prizes!

This year, we have a goal of increasing student engagement in line with the College's expanded focus on experiential learning. In previous years, Raptor Tank was offered as an 8-week program leading up to a final competition day.

Participants were required to join every workshop on a specific day and time each week or risk ineligibility. However, we recognize that this could be very time-consuming for many students who juggle busy work, school, and personal schedules. Additionally, interested students who were busy during our allotted workshop timeframes could not participate at all. Therefore, this year, our strategy is to condense the timeline into a 5-week program and utilize a “flipped” workshop format, which will include workshops in a Distance Learning format with optional in-person workshops to help students get individual help working on their business ideas.

On February 13th, our Raptor Tank Blackboard classroom will go live. All participants will have access to video workshop recordings, worksheets, and other resources that they can use to begin building their business pitch. We will hold three optional, in-person workshops where participants can come in and ask questions to guest speakers, MC business faculty, Raptor Tank Co-Leads, and MBI Consulting students.
By moving Raptor Tank to this flipped format, we hope to bring as much value to participants as possible; they can learn at their own pace through the Raptor Tank Blackboard classroom and utilize the workshops to network and have any questions answered by seasoned business professionals.
Every student that completes the program and participates in the preliminary pitch round will receive a Raptor Tank prize bag, and those who make it to the final round can earn up to $2000. Judges will allocate funding to each final-round business based on the quality of the business pitch and idea.

We hope that, with these new updates to the Raptor Tank program, we can engage as many participants as possible. Whether they have a business idea, already own a business, or are simply interested in learning about entrepreneurship, every MC student from every campus is invited to join us in our new and improved Raptor Tank business pitch competition.

Raptor Tank is a student-run program sponsored with profits from the student-run Macklin Business Institute Cafe on the Rockville campus, and in partnership with the Montgomery College business program and MC Enactus. This program is designed to promote student start-up ideas and economic development by bringing together students with mentors and judges from the entrepreneurial community in a real life business challenge.

Interested? Please sign up using our Intent to Participate formnew window.

Interested participants may contact mcraptortank@gmail.com.