UIS MBA student helps the U of I System team finish second in a Chicago business pitch competition

Matt Hutchison, a Metamora resident and MBA student at the University of Illinois Springfield, helped the University of Illinois System's Discovery Partners Institute team finish in second place during the Final Four Pitch Competition hosted by Chicago-based 1871, a non-profit digital startup incubator, on July 31, 2018.

Teams from the University of Illinois System's Discovery Partners Institute, DePaul University’s Coleman Entrepreneurship Center along with Michigan State University and Purdue University gathered to pitch their best business startup ideas in a competition similar to the television show Shark Tank.

Each university selected five student teams and each team had a display table to talk about their business idea. Attendees then voted for their favorite business idea from each university. The top team receiving the most votes from each university then competed in a live 5-minute pitch with Q&A from 1871 judges.

Hutchison’s team pitched a company called AddIT, which would match the supply of specialized additive manufacturers around the world with its growing demand. The company would serve as a conduit to both consumers and enterprise in need of unique replacement parts—for old machinery, old buildings, or even new prototypes —with a large, diversified networks of additive manufacturers seeking to timely capitalize on spare capacity.

Hutchison is currently earning his MBA at the UIS Peoria Center while working full-time as a supply chain manager for Caterpillar, Inc.

This is the first time that a UIS student has competed in the Final Four Pitch Competition.