A Fresno City College freshman is headed to Kansas after winning the Fresno State Lyles Center CCEP Pitch Competition on Sept. 25.

Micah Chaffin, business administration major, won the inaugural entrepreneurial pitch competition with his idea for a college parking app.

He first thought of this idea in his BA 52 class, an entrepreneurial strategies course, taught by Amber Balakian.

“Basically, it was an idea I had for an app; it was actually a little daunting because I came up with the idea only about a month before the actual pitch (due date),” Chaffin said. “I was working really hard to get it finished up to that point, a lot of the other people had their ideas for years, but for me it was this app idea that revolves around college students.”

He says that his app was born out out necessity and is going to be an app that will solve problems for a lot of people.

“My teacher, Amber Balakian, helped me a lot,” Chaffin said. “I would go to her, and she’d help me refine it and tell me what and what not to put in.”

Balakian says that Chaffin developed the idea of an app in her class for an assignment.

Students in Balakian’s BA 52 class were assigned to develop a solution to a problem on FCC’s campus. “They [students] walked around, talked to different people, and got a list of 10 different problems,” she said.

One of the main problems students had was parking, she said. “They had to develop a solution to the problem, so he came up with an app that would help make parking a lot easier for staff and students on college campuses,” she said.

Both Chaffin and Balakian were delighted to give the overview of the app, but could not give out more information due to legal matters.

“Throughout the course, they’re developing this idea for the whole semester and he [Chaffin] wanted to use that as his signature project,” Balakian said. “Then the pitch competition came and he was the only one who wanted to go to that, so he practiced and did really well. He put in a lot of work to get to that point.”

Balakian says that Chaffin’s app can benefit college students because it will be a relief to have something that will help students with parking.

“For FCC students, it [Chaffin’s app] would encourage me that anything’s possible as long as I have an idea and I kind of put the footwork behind it, I can make it happen,” said Balakian.

As the winner of the pitch competition, Chaffin will receive an all-expense paid trip to Wichita, Kansas in November to attend the Collegiate Entrepreneur’s Organization National Conference.

“It’s insane, honestly. I’ve never ever been paid to travel or ever been able to do something like that, so it’s a crazy opportunity,” Chaffin said. “I was telling people that I’m super stoked for the conference, but I’m just excited that somebody is paying for me to fly; it’s amazing it’s a huge blessing.”