In October 2026, Texas A&M students will“Building a better future through business and AI” Undergraduate Contest Sponsored by Mays Business School.
Applications are officially open for two contests sponsored by Maze: the AI National Undergraduate Pitch Competition and the AI Thesis Proposal Competition. Both debuted last year.
Arnold Castro, assistant dean of the Mays School of Artificial Intelligence, said A&M is the first university in the nation to host a competition of this scale.
The winner of the AI National Undergraduate Pitch Competition, a competition in which students present startups that use AI to solve real-world problems, will receive $250,000, an increase of $150,000 from last year, with all funding coming from outside donors, Castro said.
The Undergraduate Pitch Contest has three stages. In the first stage, competitors will have to draft a business plan, and in the second stage, they will have to present their pitch online to a panel of judges comprised of mechatronics engineering seniors and last year’s winners, interdisciplinary engineering technology seniors Ananya Das and Kshithi Kangovi.
In the third round, the top 12 teams from colleges across the country gather at A&M’s campus, all expenses paid, to make their final pitch. Castro said there were about 103 applicants from 37 universities across the country in 2025.
The judging panel includes 5 judges (4 human, 1 AI). Castro said AI judges can help avoid human biases, such as special interest in a particular company’s field, when judging teams.
Through the competition, Das and Kangovi said they learned business-related skills they would not have learned otherwise to help their business, Soma Tech, a precision irrigation company that combines AI and soil buffering solutions to give farmers the best way to grow crops during droughts.
“It really helped solidify our idea for the business because it was built through the stages of business plan, minimum viable product and pitch,” Das said. “That ultimately helped us incorporate as an LLC.”
The company continued to grow after their win, helped by the prize money they received and the networking opportunities the contest provided. Das said they just received their first samples of the hydrogel in the mail and are currently in the early stages of testing.
“This is a technology that doesn’t really exist, so we’re building the data from scratch,” Kangovi said.
Another competition focuses on Ph.D. For student thesis proposals, six top competitors in each of Maze’s fields (accounting, finance, information systems, management, marketing, and supply chain management, respectively) received prizes.
“They’re competing for $10,000 in cash, which could mean a lot to them as they finish their studies and move somewhere else and are looking for work,” Castro said.
A panel of judges will select the top applicants from each of the six disciplines to come to A&M and give a TED talk-style presentation to faculty.
“I really enjoyed seeing the research students put together dealing with artificial intelligence and their respective areas of expertise,” Castro said. “Personally, I was expecting to walk in and have things on my head and get lost, but that wasn’t the case. I loved it.”
Once participants arrive at the competition, they will spend the morning meeting and making connections with faculty in their field, and may even set up interviews for various positions.
Castro added that this year’s competition will have a number of changes, including allowing graduate students to apply for the pitch competition, as many investors are interested in late-stage startups.
Another change is the removal of the four-person team limit. Currently, teams can include as many members as you like, including working adults. Each team will select two representatives to compete in the Maze.
Mr Das and Mr Kangovi encouraged students to take advantage of this opportunity and enter the competition.
“You just go and apply and do it,” Kangovi said. “Personally, I never thought I would be able to make it this far.”
business plan submission The application deadline for the pitch contest is May 1st (Friday), and the essay proposal contest application deadline is June 1st (Monday).
