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Indians win Penn State Smeal FinTech App Competition
The senior international finance majors won $5,000 in scholarship money as the prize.
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Bhavana P - Fri, 23, May 2025
- 15:24 EDT
- 0
Three senior international finance students claimed first place in the inaugural Penn State FinTech App Competition sponsored by the Penn State Smeal College of Business Department of Finance and The FinTech Group, a student organization. / Penn state
Two Indian students were part of the winning team in the inaugural Penn State Smeal FinTech App Competition.
Banjot Kohli, from New Delhi, and Heneel Patel, originally from Ahmedabad and now based in Dallas, collaborated with teammate Christoforos Papakostopoulos of Athens, Greece, to form Team Payleo, which claimed the top prize for its innovative fintech app pitch, which they presented before a panel of industry professionals.
Also read: Startup founded by desi students wins UMass Amherst Innovation Challenge
The competition was hosted by the Department of Finance at the Penn State Smeal College of Business in partnership with The FinTech Group, a student organization. Students were challenged to create original financial technology applications and pitch them as if seeking venture capital funding.
“Not only did they come across as professional in their presentation itself, but we could also tell that they had spent a material amount of time researching their idea, analyzing the rationale and maybe most importantly, being able to pitch / defend their app in front of the judge panel.” said Jeff Gido, a 1994 Penn State graduate and partner at Goldman Sachs, who served as a judge.
The event featured two rounds of presentations, with initial pitches evaluated by Stefan Lewellen, assistant professor of finance. Ten finalists were selected to pitch to a panel that included Gido; Jason Barg, partner at Lovell Minnick Partners; Charley DeBow, managing director at JustPark; and Glenn Fedor, CFO at Bill360.
The competition was supported by the Jeff and Wendy Gido – Goldman Sachs Distinction in Financial Technology Fund, a $500,000 endowment aimed at preparing students for careers in the fintech industry.
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