Jorden Anfinson ’24 and his team celebrate their win.
Computer science and data analytics double major Jorden Anfinson ’24 has a bright idea - an app that gives students the opportunity to make college classroom experiences even better.
Through the Brite app, which Anfinson and his team of high school friends created, students offer real-time feedback to professors during lectures, allowing the professors to pause and clarify lecture material. Brite is designed for large class situations, which brings additional advantages. Instead of a single student stopping by during office hours to get an answer to their question, the entire class benefits from on-the-spot explanations.
Drawing on the entrepreneurial know-how he’s gained at the Red Frame Lab, Denison’s entrepreneurial and design-thinking hub, Anfinson and his friends, who now attend West Virginia University, pitched their concept at West Virginia’s Business Plan competition — and took the top prize with its $40,000 payout.
“We were a little nervous, but we felt confident,” says Anfinson. “We had prepared for so long and felt ready for anything the judges could throw at us.”
Before entering the WV competition, Anfinson and his team traveled to Ft. Worth, Texas for a pitch contest at Texas Christian University. “Rick Coplin (Associate director of the Red Frame Lab) pointed out a lot of the things other teams were doing well, which we then incorporated into our pitch.”
And what did the team do with their $40,000? It’s being well spent. “All the money is going into the business and towards building our minimum viable product this summer. We can’t wait to complete it and get it in the hands of beta testers soon,” says Anfinson. “We can’t wait to see what comes next!”