Business Plan Competition Winners

Posted April 27, 2009, 08:09:04 PM

Thanks to all who participated and came out to support all those who competed in the business plan competition.

Congratulations to our winner RUNA!

Runa, as a project and social enterprise, exists to create US and international markets for traditional Amazonian plants, beginning with the rainforest holly called guayusa (wai-you-suh). Guayusa is a caffeinated, calming, naturally sweet leaf that has been used as a tea for centuries, and we are working to share that tradition with international consumers. By leveraging the power of markets for healthy products (particularly energy beverages), Runa can plant forests, develop supplemental livelihoods for indigenous communities in Ecuador, and re-envision how these communities can actively lead new ventures. We will add the most possible value to our raw ingredients in Ecuador, leaving greater benefits in the country before final production of consumer beverages in the US, while lowering our costs and giving consumers the knowledge that their purchase is going as far as it possible to support Ecuadorian communities.
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The two Runner Ups were H&F Contracting and SolarCycle.

H&F Contracting Services is a disaster relief company that specializes in debris removal in the aftermath of natural disasters of every kind. H&F seeks to change the culture that exists in the government contracting industry by taking an honest, considerate, and transparent approach to providing emergency services to families and businesses that are tragically affected each year by natural disasters. H&F approaches each disaster relief contract as an opportunity to help people in need, and this is the motivating factor behind our business model.

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SolarCycle began in 2008 in response to the staggering environmental
damage and negative health effects caused by contaminated drinking
water and indoor air pollution in the developing world. Seeking to
address this issue with locally-available, low-cost materials,
SolarCycle�s founders, John Tilleman and Drew Durbin, looked to trash.
Mr. Tilleman and Mr. Durbin have designed a revolutionary material
made from used plastic bags and the aluminized interior of chip bags,
which will replace virgin plastics and mirrors in solar concentrating
applications. Using this upcycled manufacturing process, SolarCycle
produces the most durable, sustainable, and financially accessible
solar cookers and water pasteurizers on the market and turns an urban
trash problem into a potential solution for diarrheal illnesses and
respiratory diseases.

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Meet The Entrepreneur- NYC May 14th

Posted April 23, 2009, 07:18:43 PM

Dumplings to Dollars: An Evening with Kenny Lao '98
Rickshaw Dumplings
Thursday May 14, 2009
6:30 to 8:30 pm
61 West 23rd Street (between 5th and 6th Avenues)

Want to be the next RAY KROC or RICHARD BRANSON? Learn the steps to
starting your own businessand how to write a great business plan!

JOIN US FOR OUR MEET THE ENTREPRENEUR SERIES.

Ever wanted to open a restaurant or start your own business or manage
your own brand? How do two young entrepreneurs grow a multi-million
dollar business in just a few short years? What steps do you need to
follow your dreams in a downturn?

Don't miss this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to dine and dish with
one of Forbes Magazine's "40 Under 40"! Kenny Lao '98, founder of
Rickshaw Dumpling Bar, has garnered national attention for the unique
dumpling bars (and dumpling trucks) that have sprouted up all around New
York City.

Kenny will be joined by his co-partner and fellow NYU Stern School of
Business alum David Weber (Yale '99). Together, Kenny and David will
share their experiences in business, marketing practices, tough times
and how they turned their personal passions into a business and culinary
success! Learn how Rickshaw Dumplings became the first destination of
choice for Martha Stewart after serving her time! How did they attract
the attention of a Michelin-starred consulting chef, Anita Lo to grow
and develop their brand?

Find out how two young guys has combined a love of Chinese-style
dumplings and incredible business acumen into one of New York's
most successful multi-million dollar restaurant mini-empires!

In addition, we are pleased to announce that the following
organizations have graciously agreed to co-sponsor the event:

* Brown University's Entrepreneurship Program

* Yale Alumni Association of Metropolitan New York

* NYU - Stern School of Business

This event is open to alumni, current students, family, and friends.

GREAT VALUE! Learn what it takes to launch a new business and succeed
in one of the toughest restaurant markets! Join us for an evening of
complimentary beer, dumplings and other dishes, and network with other
like-minded enterpreneurs !

Cost: $35 per person. Reserve early! SPACE IS VERY LIMITED!

To register, visit www.brownnyc.org.

For additional information, please contact
jacqui.hogans@alumni.brown.edu

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Innovation Forum for Business Owners

Posted April 23, 2009, 07:15:01 PM

This Saturday May 2nd, from 9am-12pm

Bentley Wealth Advisors, LLC and DiSanto Priest & Co. will be holding an event on Brown's Campus in McMillan Hall Room 115

-Kevin J. Dowling VP Innovation, Color Kinetics, a Philips Company

Innovation is alive and well � optimism unbounded, the CK Story www.colorkinetics.com
Dramatic (60-80%) energy cost savings for LED lighting�hear and see the story�

-Neal McNamara Esq. of Nixon Peabody, Angela Paolino SPHR of DiSanto Priest & Co.
Getting the most from your people- 20-30 minutes of stories from the field

-Successful Entrepreneur Case Study: Larry Wesson CEO, Medport Inc. in Providence
Medport's owner died in a tragic accident when the company was very young - and the company survived and is thriving. $12mil in sales for just one product line, called �Fit & Fresh�. Hear about overcoming obstacles.

-Wrap Up with Discussion of the best-selling book �The Last Lecture�
How dreams and ideas always have a future - We will talk about the inspiration of Professor Randy Pausch an alumnus from Carnegie Mellon University and Brown University

Coffee, Tea and Snacks

$15 per person donation to the Brown Entrepreneurs Program www.BrownEP.org guiding future entrepreneurs

Kindly RSVP to Chris Ricci at cricci@bentleywealth.com

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Congratulations!

Posted April 22, 2009, 07:10:12 PM

Congratulations to our 2009 Business Plan Competition finalists:

Green Handicraft Initiative
H&F Contracting Services
National Students of AMF (deceased or "Ailing Mothers, Fathers," or loved ones) Support Network
NuLabel
Runa
SolarCycle

Click here for a description of each team and to learn more about the final round of the competition which will be held in Wilson Hall 102 on April 26th, 2009 starting at 1:00 pm.

In other recent news, we have had two Brown EP alums featured on TV in the past few days. Liz Hamburg '86, EP Advisory Board president and president of Upstart Ventures and Andrew Yang '96, a panelist at our 2008 Family Weekend event and CEO of ManhattanGMAT were featured on MSNBC and CNBC, respectively.

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Business Plan Competition Details

Posted March 16, 2009, 05:50:52 PM

Full rules, regulations, and details of EP's $50,000 Business Plan Competition are now available online. To learn more, please click here.

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March Mentorship Sessions

Posted March 09, 2009, 05:36:09 PM

This month's mentorship sessions will be held with David Durfee, Ph.D. on March 17th from 1pm-5pm. To reserve a time to meet with Dr. Durfee, please email ep@brown.edu.

David Durfee graduated in Electrical Engineering from Brown University in 1980. He has worked as a systems design engineer for several area companies. His commercial experience directly involved all phases of system development including application programming, OS programming, firmware, along with digital and analog electronics design.

In 1992, he completed graduate studies at Brown University (where he received a Masters degree in Computer Science and a Ph.D. for studies in EE/CS) while working as a commercial design engineer.

Dr. Durfee has been an adjunct professor for the University of Rhode Island and currently an adjunct at Brown teaching "EN1580 Communications Systems".

Since 1989, he has been a principal of Bay Computer Associates, Inc., specializing in contract design of custom electronics and software. Products developed at BCA include business software as well as communications, medical, laboratory, and manufacturing devices. Customers range from fortune 500 firms to startups. Learn more at baycomp.com.

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$50,000 Business Plan Competition Details

Posted March 05, 2009, 11:10:03 PM

We're pleased to announce preliminary details of this year's $50,000 Business Plan Competition. We will be posting additional information over the next few days so be sure to check back often.

All business plans must be submitted in PDF format via our online submission and judging system here before 11:59pm on April 10th, 2009.

After a first round of judging, the top five teams will be asked to present to a second panel of students and judges on April 26th, 2009. Following deliberation, the top six (three standard enterprise and three social enterprise) finalists will be announced.

This year we are allocating a small percentage of scoring to an audience vote at the live second-round event, so be sure to tell your friends!

Need help with your plan? Take advantage of EP's mentorship program! Whether you've got a quick question or have big issues to discuss, EP can put you in touch with an expert in a field you'd like advice in. Just click here to get started.

Please email ep@brown.edu with any questions you may have.

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Response to Brown Daily Herald Editorial

Posted March 05, 2009, 03:48:19 PM

Last week, The Brown Daily Herald published an editorial which criticized the quality of entrepreneurship and business-related education available at Brown. EP's response was printed in today's issue and is reproduced here:

To the Editor:

As student leaders involved with entrepreneurship education at Brown, we are writing in response to last week's ill-informed and hypocritical editorial ("We're in business," Feb. 23). The editorial criticizes the Commerce, Organizations and Entrepreneurship program for being pre-professional, (i.e. preparing students for work in a particular field through practical instruction), yet also criticizes COE for not preparing students for professional life. This paradoxical attack suggests that the editors may have used COE as a vehicle for expressing an anti-business bias, rather than legitimately evaluating the concentration as an academic program.

The primary aim of COE is to study organizations and entrepreneurship from a multidisciplinary perspective. Students are exposed to analytical frameworks that are well grounded in the disciplines of economics, organizational studies and technology management. Skills that students can elect to study are indeed practical, but no more so than some courses in Public Policy or International Relations, for example. If The Herald questions whether COE teaches "marketable skills," then the career successes of COE graduates now in the Brookings Institute, Capital One, Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan, Northwestern Mutual, Teach for America and Turner Construction speak for themselves.

A strong line of attack in the editorial is COE's purported lack of rigor. Though the difficulty of any concentration at Brown is ultimately of the student's choosing, COE's structure is just as strenuous, if not more, than many concentrations, requiring 14 to 17 courses depending upon the track. In terms of content, courses in economics focus on finance, an area of investigation made all the more important by recent world events; courses in sociology focus on organizational theory, an area of study attracting far more research than any other in management; courses in technology management focus on the process of transforming ideas into opportunities, and, deliberately, opportunities into commercial realities. These courses are complemented with at least four additional classes in the traditional hard sciences.

Students are attracted to this interdisciplinary concentration. They know that today's world demands a broad set of intellectual skills. Furthermore, many things are happening under the COE umbrella outside the classroom, from events such as last week's Entrepreneurship Program Forum, which was attended by over 200 students, faculty and alumni and watched online by more than 11,000 people, to an undergraduate summer internship in India, student-faculty events organized by its DUG and a new mentorship initiative under the aegis of the Brown Women in Business student group.

Contrary to the derogatory tone of Monday's editorial, COE helps students to master one of the hardest intellectual challenges: integrating cutting-edge ideas across three very different disciplines. This ability to synthesize multiple perspectives is not only central to Brown's mission; it is also indispensable to success in business, public service and scholarship alike.

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