Seattle-area young entrepreneurs capture third-straight win in global TiE startup pitch contest

A team of Seattle-area high school students won the 2026 TiE Young Entrepreneurs (TYE) Global Pitch Competition earlier this month, notching a three-peat for the TYE Seattle chapter.

More than 35 teams from 27 chapters around the world competed in the finals, which were held simultaneously at Bellevue College in Bellevue, Wash., and Kerala Startup Mission (KSUM) in India, from June 11-13.

With another team finishing third, the Seattle chapter has produced five winning teams at the global event over the past three years.

• DuggAI won first place and a $3,000 prize. The startup’s AI agent is built to handle the “unglamorous side” of software development: triaging, contextualizing, and resolving engineering tickets so developers can stay focused on shipping product. Team members Ashish Naik, Shaurya Duggal, and Kruthik Ankam are all from Skyline High School in Sammamish, Wash.

• Hydrobin took third place and a $1,000 prize. Operating under EcoProducts LLC, the startup turns ocean-bound plastic into reusable packaging designed to displace single-use containers across consumer and shipping use cases. Team members Ananya Sharda, Aarav Narayan, Yatharth Kothari, Adithya Gogini, and Nissi V. are from Interlake High School in Bellevue, Wash.

TYE is a program under The Indus Entrepreneurs global network that gives students in grades 9-12 experience building companies from scratch. The program has been running for more than 20 years, now encompassing more than 40 cities around the world.

TYE Seattle credits its winning ways to a dedicated assortment of mentors, judges, and sponsors. For the 2025-2026 cohort, 22 mentors from Seattle-area tech leadership contributed, and more than 25 sponsors backed the program.

The Seattle chapter finals and the global semifinals attracted 10 judges with questions and targeted feedback for contestants. Bellevue College hosted the semis on June 12, where judges picked three teams from a field of 18 from the U.S., Canada, and Singapore to advance. On June 13, those three teams went head to head with the top three from India for the global title.

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TYE Seattle’s leadership team includes Aravind Bala (instructor), Kishor Panpaliya (board member), Yashovardhan Wagh (program chair), and Aalok Doshi (program co-chair). Several are founders themselves who have spent years iterating on a blueprint for coaching high school entrepreneurs on aspects of customer discovery, prototyping, and pitch prep.

“In the world of AI, the earlier you get into entrepreneurship, the better. It teaches students how to actually build their own products, and puts more of them in position to change the world,” said Wagh, who is founder of Renton-based recommerce company gone.com. “We want to create a country-wide program, and ultimately an ecosystem, that lets students experience the real world and bring that experience back into their education.”

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