All eyes are on entrepreneurs to help revive the economy, and the winners of this year’s Olin Cup business competition got their very own $75,000 stimulus package to jump-start their ventures and create jobs.
Ken Harrington, managing director of the Skandalaris Center at WUSTL announced the winners Feb. 5 at the annual award ceremony in Graham Chapel after the seven finalists presented two-minute “elevator pitch” descriptions of their companies. It was the culmination of a six-month competition that began with a record number of 45 contestants.
And the winners are:
Quartzy, an online inventory management system for academic life-sciences labs that also will encompass marketing and sales channels for vendors of research biochemicals and technology transfer offices that sell research reagents. Adam Regelmann, M.D., Ph.D., a third-year resident in the Washington University School of Medicine, is the founder of the company that launched one year ago. Quartzy was awarded $50,000 of investment funding.
IV Diagnostics, creator of a new medical device and diagnostic technology for detecting and monitoring tumor cells circulating in the bloodstream. The new technology is designed to provide accurate detection and aid physicians with early prognosis. The company currently is conducting pre-clinical trials. WUSTL alumnus and former Olin Cup winner Seth Burgett is a director of the company. Frank Szczepanski is co-founder and CEO. IV Diagnostics was awarded $20,000 of investment funding.
Quad Connect, winner of this year’s $5,000 student-led venture prize, under the leadership of junior Emmanuel Bamfo, is designing an online social platform for university students.
Mary Butkus
Student entrepreneurs and founders of Quad Connect (from left) Justin McClain, Emmanuel Bamfo, Josh Charney and Micah Herstand celebrate at the Olin Cup award ceremony in which their new venture received $5,000 in funding. They plan to launch their online social platform for WUSTL this year and sell the concept to universities and colleges nationwide.
Quad Connect will provide a searchable calendar for all campus events and facilitate information-sharing among student groups and event organizers. The site also will allow students to synch their personal calendars with the university calendar.
LangLearner was selected as the Olin Cup’s first-ever community winner and is qualified to seek funding from the Skandalaris Student Venture Fund (SSVF). SSVF is an MBA student-led venture fund in the Olin Business School. LangLearner is a web-based platform for language learning.
The other finalists in this year’s Olin Cup were Eyelten Therapeutics, developing therapies for treating age-related macular degeneration; Lynxess, developing an automated software solution for tracing prescription drug containers to combat counterfeiting; and WorldKi, a Web-based marketplace for video games and design platform for video game creators.
The Skandalaris Center is accepting ideas for the 2010 Olin Cup competition on its Web site: ideabounce.com.