Eight TCU Student Ventures Split $50,000 in University Accelerator Program

Eight student-created ventures emerged as funding recipients in the 2025 Institute for Entrepreneurship CREATE program’s final pitches in May, dividing $50,000 to help bring their business ideas to life, TCU announced.

CREATE is a cross-campus accelerator program run by the Institute for Entrepreneurship and Innovation and led by associate director Paul Evans, and it concluded this year’s program at the end of the spring semester.

TCU said that CREATE, powered by the Shaddock Seed Fund, invited student teams from across the campus to develop and refine their business ventures throughout the school year and then make final pitches before a panel of judges. Ten teams pitched in April, and eight received funding.

Winning student pitches

TCU said that among the winning teams was Bakame AI, a mobile, offline English learning platform designed by first-year student Happy Herman, majoring in economics in the AddRan College of Liberal Arts and finance in the Neeley School of Business. The university said that the tool was built for students in the African nation of Rwanda and uses artificial intelligence to increase access to English education and promote academic advancement.

“I started a nonprofit to help kids on the streets of Kigali go to school,” Herman said. Bakame AI received $8,000 from CREATE.

Photo: TCU

Two more teams received a prize allocation of $8,000. One included junior Beckett Kitaen and George Zhou, the creators of Buffs, a boldsnax product intended to replace empty calories with beef-based protein puffs.

The other team was Accelerating Success, a digital education platform for science teachers developed by Rocco Williams, a PhD student in the College of Education.

TCU said that the final pitches in Shaddock Auditorium were energetic and matched by the diversity of ventures.

They included Intrapic, a lab automation startup led by Ibrahim Bozkurt, Ali Gasimli, and Ugur Topkiran in the College of Science & Engineering, and Frankie’s Tacos, a pop-up taco concept built by Frankie Napolitano, first-year finance student and a member of the John V. Roach Honors College.

Both teams received $6,000.

“Where I think I separate from a typical food truck is that I care about selling a product I would actually want to eat,” Napolitano said. “I’m not revolutionizing anything—I’m just taking care of my product.”

Three other ventures — ARÈ Vegan Beauty by Amaris Arellano ($5,000); Towel Rescue ($5,000) by Luana Araco Dominguez and Gabby Fasulo; and Elevate UR Bar by Hannah Nenadic ($4,000) — also received prize allocations, TCU said.

After pitches wrapped, Evans congratulated the participants and reflected on how much the students developed and elevated their business knowledge as they progressed through CREATE.