As I am an alum of FAU college of business and a past participant and winner of Business Plan contest in 2005, I decided to stay with the student track presentations and skip the community ones. After the student finalist presentations, the highlight was the Featured Keynote Speaker Ralph de La Vega, President and CEO, AT&T Mobility and Consumer Markets. It was really great to listen to Ralph a truly distinguished alumni who is CEO of $50 billion dollar company with 95 million customers! His keynote was a great story of his own life and professional success. He answered my question about merger with T-Mobil where he mentioned that the combination of the networks will provide a richer experience to both customers.
In the student track presentations, the first one was Night Out Social, with the goal of mobile smartphone app to connect mainly the college students 21 and up to the bars and restaurants. This was somewhat similar to the winning idea last year. The next one was Marqaha Coffee, a business plan to start coffee manufacturing business in Algeria using imported beans from Honduras. The presenter was a dual citizen of USA and Algeria. The Pet Peptides by Ashley was around the idea of medicinal gel for pet animals that can be distributed by the vets.
The next one was by Arturo who I have known since the MBA Association or the re-branded version GBA - Graduate Business Association days. Having myself been the CTO and President of the MBA Association, it was great to see the past official of the Association win the Student track with $15,000 in cash and almost same amount in services. His plan was MedWhat.com I was able to test drive his site while he was presenting and even get feedback on it from my Physical friend who incidentally was my partner in my business plan in 2005. Arturo's plan hinges around text and data mining to find credible answers for medical questions from the authentic websites and then present a single answer and quote the source. The judges grilled him on the medical liability aspect of it. If you test drive the site, you will see disclaimer that is more of an information site and not a provider of medical services. The best part is this if free to the users but the revenue model is based on selling data mining services to 3rd parties interested in the data this kind of site will generate.
So the second prize ($10,000 + services) went to Appstraction, the team of Alex, Stephanie Tach (who is also president of Financial Management Association at FAU). They demoed the idea using an iPad, where users can be guided to the location of the merchandise in the guide and can also download the digital coupons that are redeemed electronically at the checkout counter. The retail stores will need columns connected by wi-fi and some display screens installed in the store. The team will have to collaborate with both the manufacturer and the retail store to work this through.
The next one was OCI – Onsite Composting by Ernie Lefler and targeted handling the food related waste. This idea is aimed to help meet Florida's target of recycling food waste. The third prize ($5000) went to Continental America Inc who demonstrated a patented paint shield. I thought this one was very different from the rest and was based on the traditional idea of a "product" and making money by selling it while it is protected by a patent. The last presentation was called eVenue Now by Maya Cramer's team who used her own experience of planning her wedding into a business idea. I was little surprised that they did not have a website to showcase even though the company name said eVenue. The team said that average wedding costs about $28,000 and a big part of that expense is related to venue. It seems this idea was somewhat similar to the one that won the People's Choice award "Ideal I Do's Inc."
Overall it was great to see this event growing over the years with number of registered team going from 63, to 121 to 165 from 2009 to 2011 and the prize money going from $33k to $65k to $125K this year. The organizer Kimberly Gramm's goal is to get the prize money to $1m over next few yeas. If she succeeded in attracting the CEO of a $50 billion company to give away the awards I am sure that day with $1m prize money is not that far away!
