For the first time, student teams competing in the UNM Technology Business Plan Competition will have the opportunity to compete in the Big 12 Conference New Venture Championship. Representatives from two UNM teams, Surya Skincare and Advanced Pulmonary Systems, will travel to Arlington, Texas on March 25 to compete with other teams from a 10-state region for a valuable package of prizes.
Increasingly, higher education leaders are encouraging private sector investment in innovative products, often developed at the universities themselves, as a means of promoting high-return economic development in their regions. One result of this focus has been the growth of university-based business plan competitions.
The Texas competition, begun in 2005 by the Big 12 Center for Economic Development, Innovation, and Commercialization (CEDIC), offers students solid experience and professional exposure in pitching their plans to startup investors.
· Teams can participate in an Invention to Venture (I2V) workshop created by the National Collegiate Inventors and Innovators Alliance (NCIIA).
· Investors focusing on university technology commercialization will observe and judge the teams during their plan presentations.
· Each team will create and deliver a two-minute “elevator pitch” of their startup, and the winning team will receive $1,000.
· Teams will hear from previous years’ championship teams about peer suggestions for success.
· Two rounds of formal competition will involve 35-minute presentations by students and intensive questioning by judges on financial projections, marking strategies, organizational structure, and other questions of firm viability.
· The second- and third-place teams will receive $3,000 and $2,000 awards respectively.
· The winning team will receive a cash award of $10,000, legal services valued at $10,000, consulting advice from a panel of experts valued at $10,000, and an invitation to the world renowned Global MOOT CORP Competition at The University of Texas at Austin in May.
Team members traveling to the CEDIC New Venture Championship include Kevin Stevenson, MBA candidate at The Anderson School of Management, with the new venture Advanced Pulmonary Systems, dedicated to providing innovative, non-invasive diagnostic tools for a wide array of bacterial infections of the pulmonary system; and William Reichard and Steven Renfro, Executive MBA candidates, with the startup Surya Skincare, utilizing a nano technology sun block with quantum dot absorption capabilities to more effectively prevent skin ailments. Team members not traveling to Texas include Miles Nelson, Klaus Mueller, Peter Duselis, James Baldwin, and Robin Perini.
On Friday, April 11, The Anderson School of Management will host the third-annual UNM Technology Business Plan Competition. This year, ASM will award $40,000 in prize money to students looking to form their own high-tech startups in New Mexico.
These awards are the Michael Gallegos Prize for Entrepreneurship ($25,000), the TVC Lockheed Martin Prize ($10,000), and the vSpring Capital Prize ($5,000). Venture capital partners have also offered more than $100,000 in seed funding as incentives for UNM teams. For more information, visit: Technology Business Plan.