The Jackson County Chamber has announced the finalists for its inaugural SPARK Tank entrepreneur pitch competition.

Last month, 17 local entrepreneurs and innovators submitted an idea they would like to develop into a business model. The submissions were anonymously reviewed and rated by a panel of Jackson County business leaders. Each submission was evaluated for its development in five key areas: Team, traction, customer discovery, opportunity and creativity.

The finalists are:

Brian Snow, “World Class Filming Location and Event Space”

Jane Ellery, “A PLACE for Change!”

Nathan Otte, “School Based Vision Clinic”

Stephanie Strothmann, “For Love of Dogs and Beer”

Nadia Herrera Luna, “NH by Nadia Herrera”

Jessica Bowman, “From Pasture to Plate, a Rural Feast”

These finalists will compete for a total of $15,000 in awards at the live SPARK Tank pitch event at 6 p.m. Feb. 1 upstairs at Rails Craft Brew & Eatery, 114 St. Louis Ave., Seymour. The public is invited but encouraged to RSVP online at surveymonkey.com/r/BZ378FB.

“We are excited that we had 17 big thinkers from Jackson County who were willing to step up and throw their big idea out there,” said Dan Robison, director of the Jackson County Chamber. “One of the goals of the SPARK initiative is to bring collaboration and partnership to our broader business community. We were thrilled to see that three of our applications were actually submitted through the Spanish version of the application.”

The SPARK Tank competition and awards are made possible by a Community Collaboration Fund grant from Indiana Economic Development Corp.