Download Entrepreneurial students recognized for viable start

Excellence in Entrepreneurship
2010, Issue 3
business.rutgers.edu
Entrepreneurial students recognized for viable
start-up ideas in Rutgers business plan competition
Cash prizes awarded to allow winning Rutgers’ MBAs to commence
business operations
Interactive health-care device plan takes first place, second
place shared by an idea for a software application for
persons with disabilities and an event planning website.
Innovation in business, whether spurred by competition or an
entrepreneurial spirit, is the spark to progress. But then the old
adage “it takes money to make money” comes into play and
the idea dies. Enter the Rutgers Business School (RBS) Business
Plan Competition, an annual event that has been awarding cash
prizes to entrepreneurial students for 10 years to give great
ideas the push to start a viable business.
Sunay Shah (RBS MBA ‘10) saw an opportunity to jumpstart his
business idea by entering the 2010 competition. Shah’s winning
idea, to provide patients waiting to receive care in a doctor’s
office a hand-held interactive device with their personal health
records and customized medical information loaded on it, was
one of 31 business plans entered in the competition. Shah
and partner Maria Frantz, who received a Masters in Science Biostatistics from Rutgers, won the $20,000 first place prize to
invest into their business.
Winners Sunay Shah (RBS MBA ’10) and Maria Frantz with Richard
Romano (center), president of the Sales Executive Club of Northern New
Jersey Foundation, and member of the RBS Board of Advisers.
Open to students in the RBS undergraduate, MBA, and
Executive MBA programs as well as recent RBS alumni, teams
competed for $35,000 in cash prizes provided by the Sales
“Servicing technology for physicians for the past 10 years, I
Executives Club of Northern New Jersey Foundation. “The
started seeing a lot of things in doctor’s offices that could be
Business Plan Competition shows Rutgers’ commitment to
done to close the information gap between doctor and patient,”
encourage entrepreneurship,” said Richard Romano, president
said Shah, who founded his company StratiMed in 2008. “This
of the Sales Executive Club of Northern New Jersey Foundation,
money will immediately allow us to buy the hardware and
and member of the RBS Board of Advisers.
software needed to start selling,” he said.
continued >
Rutgers Business School – Business, Science, and Technology
Multidisciplinary programs
Strong corporate partnerships
Real world, international experiences
Leaders in research
•270 degree programs to partner
with at Rutgers University
•Partnerships with leading executives
at top corporations
•High employment placement for
graduates
•World-class industry experienced faculty
•Dual degrees that deliver business,
science, and technology credentials
demanded by local, national
& global markets
•Near a major center of global business,
20 minutes from New York City
•Student team case competition victories
•Addressing major societal trends
& issues globally
•Global network of over 30,000 RBS alumni, & over 380,000 university wide
•Research projects leveraged by
companies
•Distinct career advantages for students
Excellence in Entrepreneurship
2010, Issue 3
business.rutgers.edu
> continued from reverse
There was a tie for second place between Equal Footing,
submitted by Dan Spindler, Executive MBA - Marketing, 2010, and
Big Day Network, submitted by Mike DeCesare, BS in Business,
expected December 2010, with each team winning $7,500.
Spindler’s idea for Equal Footing came from his wife who
teaches handicapped children. “We want to create a web-based
tool to advance the life of people with disabilities,” he said.
Spindler said the business plan competition money would help
him do a lot of marketing to promote the idea.
The Business Plan Competition shows
Rutgers’ commitment to encourage
entrepreneurship.
With an enthusiastic grin, DeCesare said that his idea came from
his mother who has always wanted to be a wedding planner.
The Big Day Network website, which is hoping to “transform
the event planning industry,” according to DeCesare, will be
launched in September thanks to the business plan competition
prize money.
The objective of the Business Plan Competition is to encourage
the development of Rutgers students’ business plans that
have the potential to be funded and launched. More than just
a competition, “it is a reflection of Rutgers Business School’s
strong corporate partnerships and its emphasis on preparing its
students and graduates to succeed in applying business concepts
to real-world challenges,” said Michael R. Cooper, PhD., Dean of
Rutgers Business School.
Entrepreneurship opportunities at
Rutgers Business School
The Rutgers Business Plan
Competition is one of many
opportunities students have to
explore their entrepreneurial
drive while studying at Rutgers
Business School.
The newest concentration
available to MBA students
in Entrepreneurship was
launched in fall 2009 and
more entrepreneurship
courses available to all
students have been added to
the curriculum as a result.
Susan Gilbert
“Our deep dive into
Executive Director, Associate
entrepreneurship combines
Dean of MBA Program
fostering an entrepreneurial
culture wherever you work, whether it be a small firm or large
enterprise,” said Susan Gilbert, Executive Director and Associate
Dean of the MBA Program. “We want our MBA students to
create new sources of wealth, jobs, and revenues in New Jersey
and around the world.”
RBS Students also have access to various research centers that
focus on entrepreneurship, innovation, and bringing intellectual
property to market. The Center for Urban Entrepreneurship &
Economic Development (CUEED) at Rutgers Business School
is the first center of its kind in the nation to integrate venture
capital and city resources with university research to study and
promote economic development and entrepreneurship.
A center focused on technology and innovation, the Rutgers
Business, Engineering, Science and Technology (BEST) Institute,
is an interdisciplinary enterprise which provides an educational
and training service through the commercialization of Rutgers’
intellectual property.
Previous winners were in 2009, The Intersect Fund, a micro lender
With more than 270 Rutgers University degree programs to
based in New Brunswick and comprised mostly of volunteer
partner with, RBS is uniquely capable of delivering cutting-
Rutgers Students, and in 2008, Bookswim, a book rental service
edge, multidisciplinary curricula that combine the mix of
with a similar business model to the one Netflix uses.
business and science required by today’s leading corporations.
Rutgers Business School–Newark and New Brunswick (RBS) is an integral part of one of the nation’s oldest, largest, and most distinguished institutions
of higher learning: Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, founded in 1766. Rutgers Business School has been accredited since 1941 by AACSB
International–the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business—a distinction that represents the hallmark of excellence in management
education. Today, with a focus on Business, Science, and Technology, Rutgers Business School is educating more than 5,000 undergraduate and graduate
students at two main campuses in New Jersey as well as six satellite locations in New Jersey, China, and Singapore. Steeped in academic excellence, with
a distinguished faculty and a corps of over 30,000 successful alumni, Rutgers Business School is highly ranked by the Financial Times, U.S. News & World
Report, BusinessWeek, and The Wall Street Journal. It is recognized as one of the top three business schools in the greater New York metropolitan area;
and is part of the campus that is ranked #1 in diversity nationwide by U.S. News & World Report, since 1997.
Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey – founded 1766
Rutgers Business School—Newark and New Brunswick
1 Washington Park, Newark, NJ 07102, USA