American Chain of Warehouses Inc. member Lansdale Warehouse Co. was a proud sponsor of this year’s Supply Chain Pitch Contest, an entrepreneurial learning experience open to all of 63,000 Penn State undergraduates in all majors.

The challenge for teams is to make persuasive cases for supply chain solutions.

The pitch idea should be aimed at solving a supply chain problem or improving a supply chain product or process. And it should allow the possibility of developing a startup business to pursue the idea.

The team members then make oral presentations to a panel of judges who chose the eventual finalists.

Pitch ideas include developing a process to determine the best ROI on warehouse automation and which functions are best suited for automation. Others involved new analytical techniques to take better advantage of big data and cloud computing.

Winning First Place and $6,000 was Team Kijenzi, consisting of Penn State Chandler Goewert, Luke Pinto, Daniel Kats and Akhil Pothana. They pitched a social venture using 3D printing to ease last-mile delivery of medical equipment in Eastern Africa.

The second place and $3,000 went to Joel Seidel, Devanshi Agnihotri, and Timothy Emeigh. Their idea involved improving medical device supply chain visibility using a system to gather, organize and report raw FDA data, which results in standardized continuous data access for all areas of the supply chain.

Third place went to a proposal for using third-party logistics solutions for rural pharmacies’ and their customers’ geographical restrictions, and fourth place went to to students who proposed using block chain technology to improve visibility, productivity, security and sustainability.