MSEL Duo Earns First Place at GEM Hackathon

April 16, 2025

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Rhaaghav Kanodia MSEL’25 and Kamo Aghbalyan MSEL’25 took first place at Babson College’s third annual GEM Hackathon, hosted by the Butler Institute for Free Enterprise Through Entrepreneurship.

The first-place team poses with their winning check — Professor Andrew Corbett presents the winning check to the first-place team of Rhaaghav Kanodia MSEL’25 and Kamo Aghbalyan MSEL’25. (Photo: Nic Czarnecki/Babson College)

The hackathon challenged students to analyze seven years of Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM) United States report data—over 15,800 observations—to uncover what shapes the American entrepreneur. Students explored everything from founder backgrounds and co-founder dynamics to market selection and reasons for business exit.

Kanodia and Aghbalyan earned $3,000 for their first-place effort. Judges praised their work for going beyond surface-level insights, applying machine learning and statistical rigor to reveal meaningful and sometimes surprising findings.

“This is an impressive analysis that effectively explores key entrepreneurial characteristics using GEM data,” the judges concluded. “They went beyond the surface to generate novel findings. I could see this leading to a research paper.”

In the hackathon, Vitor Ungari MBA’25 earned second place and $2,000, and Arman Ozsu ’25 and Connor Raney ’25 teamed up to take third place and $1,000.

A group of people pose with their winning checks — The second- and third-place teams receive their prize winnings. (Photo: Nic Czarnecki/Babson College)

Posted in Babson Briefs

Tagged Class of 2025, Entrepreneurship, Entrepreneurship Ecosystems, Entrepreneurship Education, Graduate, Research, Undergraduate, Arthur M. Blank School for Entrepreneurial Leadership

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By Hillary Chabot

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Hillary Chabot

Hillary Chabot is a writer for Babson Thought & Action and Babson Magazine. An award-winning journalist, she is known for her insightful reporting and dedication to detailed storytelling. With a career spanning over two decades, she has covered a wide range of topics, from presidential campaigns and government policy to neighborhood issues and investigative series. As a reporter for The Boston Herald, Hillary earned a reputation for tenacity and integrity. Her work at Babson College fuels her passions—to learn something new every day and conduct thoughtful, empathic interviews. She’s thrilled to be at Babson College, where students, faculty, staff members and classes provide compelling copy daily.

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