Michigan City native Austyn Crites and RockZip High Balloons, an innovative company that designs and builds highballoons that are affordable to launch, has been named a finalist in the 2014 Lightning Pitch Competition at the NewSpace Conference in Silicon Valley, California.
RockZip is one of eight finalists that will deliver a four-minute presentation to an audience of space industry professionals, Silicon Valley investors and our Lightning Pitch judges from July 24-26 in Silicon Valley. Three winners will be taking home $30,000 to help with their business startup. Other finalists include Accion Systems, from Boston, Massachusetts; Cubecab from Mountain View, California; Cuberstation from Palo Alto, California; Elysium Space from San Francisco; Hive from Phoenix; Space Resources Extraction Technology from Huntsville, Alabama; and Terran Sciences Group from Orlando, Florida.
You can see more information about the competition here.