You have two minutes to pitch your idea. GO!

That’s the tag line for “The Pitch,” presented by the DEN and the Digital Arts Leadership and Innovation Lab (DALI). The event is a chance for Dartmouth students, faculty, and staff to present project ideas to a panel of DEN and DALI Lab judges and a live audience. The most popular proposals receive venture, design, development, and/or funding support.

“Ideas are a dime a dozen; it’s execution that matters. Through this collaborative effort we want to accelerate the process by which an idea can become reality,” says Jamie Coughlin, director of New Venture Incubator Programs and the DEN Innovation Center.

Lorie Loeb, co-founder and executive director of DALI, says the lab and the DEN are a natural team to support the Dartmouth community in developing innovative, bold ideas.

“DALI brings skills in building prototypes that combine state-of-the-art technology with elegant design in order to communicate complex ideas effectively; DEN offers expertise and support for people who want to build a venture by offering entrepreneurship assistance and guidance,” Loeb says.

The Pitch invites 20 innovators to sell their ideas in a format similar to the television show Shark Tank, says Coughlin. Registration opens Tuesday, Oct. 21. Those first 20 applicants will get to pitch their ideas in two minutes at the public event in Loew Theater of the Black Family Visual Arts Center from 5 to 6:30 p.m. on Nov. 4.

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Accepted applicants will also be invited to a “pitch clinic” at the DEN Innovation Center on Oct. 31, which will include a presentation by Matt McIlwain ’87, managing director at the West Coast venture capital firm Madrona Ventures. Coughlin and Loeb say similar events are already in the works for winter and spring terms.

“This pitch event is a platform that is repeatable and will allow us to formally showcase all the exciting projects that the Dartmouth community is working on, as well as to invest the necessary resources of mentorship and capital into those entrepreneurs that show the greatest merit,” says Coughlin.

“The Pitch is an opportunity for students, staff, and faculty to pitch their big ideas,” says Loeb.

DALI is supported by the Neukom Institute and Dartmouth’s computer science department.