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'Park & Diamond' Takes Top e-Fest Prize

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e-Fest® Information

For 2018 e-Fest® info, click here.

e-Fest® 2017

MINNEAPOLIS, April 9, 2017 – The finals judges returned their decision last night, after an excellent competition. The overall finals champion undergraduate student teams for e-Fest 2017 are:

#1 ($100K) - Team Park & Diamond, Virginia Tech

#2 ($50K) - Team Eat Your Coffee, Northeastern University

#3 ($25K) - Team Yellow Card, Auburn University

Along with these top three, others recognized among the top five finalists included Team Orindi Ventures (Grand Valley State University) and Team PeeWee Packs (Grove City College).  A list of all 25 semi-finalist inventions is below.

The competition awarded more than $200,000 in grants and scholarships for the best undergraduate business ideas. Finalist teams were chosen from a pool of more than 160 teams from 81 schools who submitted seven-minute videos and 12 slides describing their business ideas. A panel of 32 judges selected the finalists, who received travel stipends and hotel accommodations for the final round.

The largest undergraduates-only business plan competition (as measured by the size of the cash awards), e-Fest is co-sponsored by the Schulze School of Entrepreneurship, Opus College of Business at the University of St. Thomas in Minneapolis and EIX.org, an online learning platform for entrepreneurs, students and professors. Featured speakers April 6-8 included Best Buy Co. founder Richard M. Schulze and "Shark Tank" TV show regular Daymond John, founder of FUBU, the urban clothing company that grew into a $6 billion brand.

The top three teams received $100,000, $50,000 and $25,000 in prizes. An additional $10,000, $5,000 and $2,500 in grants went to their universities to support entrepreneurship education. A Friday night Innovation Challenge awarded $20,000, $10,000 and $5,000 in scholarships to the top three student teams that developed the best solution to a business challenge posed that evening.

More information about the competition, including rules and rubrics for judging, can be found here. The competition will take place at the Schulze School, located at 1000 LaSalle Avenue in Minneapolis.

2017 e-Fest Finalists

 

Boost Linguistics

Drexel University

Team: Ethan Bresnahan, Alex Dodson, Jeff Nowak

Advisor: Chuck Sacco

Philadelphia
PA

Caddy-Clean

Quinnipac University

Team: Joshua Macari, Kyle Freitas

Advisor: Dale Jasinski

Hamden
CT

Convey Software

University of Illinois - Urbana Champaign

Team: William Widjaja, Cody Pawlowski

Advisor: Chase Bonhag

Champaign
IL

Eat Your Coffee

Northeastern University

Team: Johnny Fayad, Ali Kothari

Advisor: Kimberly Eddleston

Boston
MA

ExpressionMed

University of St Thomas (MN)

Team: Meghan Sharkus

Advisor: Laura Dunham

Minneapolis
MN

FinMoto

University of St Thomas (MN)

Team: Sam Rystrom

Advisor: Laura Dunham

Minneapolis
MN

GeoSwap

University of Delaware

Team: Jason Bamford, Keith Doggett, Jordan Gonzalez

Advisor: Vincent DiFelice

Newark
DE

Green Blox

College of Charleston

Team: Joshua Weston

Advisor: Kelly Shaver

Charleston
SC

In Our Hands

University of Wisconsin - Oshkosh

Team: Abigail Merrill

Advisor: Colleen Merrill

Oshkosh
WI

Jacket360

Western Michigan University

Team: Nicolas Theoret, Brandon Chiddester

Advisor: Lara Hobson

Kalamazoo
MI

Level Lacrosse - Feeder

Western Kentucky University

Team: Muamer Razic

Advisor: Dawn Bolton

Bowling Green
KY

NextStep

University of New Hampshire

Team: Sam Warach, Tj Evarts, Max Miller

Advisor: Andrew Earle

Durham
NH

Orindi Ventures

Grand Valley State University

Team: Jordan Vanderham, Zoe Bruyn

Advisor: Kevin McCurren

Grand Rapids
MI

Park & Diamond

Virginia Tech

Team: David Hall, Jordan Klein

Advisor: Dick Daugherty

Blacksburg
VA

PeeWee Packs

Grove City College

Team: Hannah Vaccaro, Ross Harrington

Advisor: Yvonne English

Grove City
PA

Phlex - xGoggles

University of Florida

Team: Luke Torres

Advisor: Michael Morris

Gainesville
FL

Sensor4Safe

Seton Hill University

Team: H. Fitzgerald Robertson II, Austin Sheridan, Melanie Ansell, Dhiraj Totwani

Advisor: Lyzona Marshall

Greensburg
PA

Simplifeye

NC State University

Team: Cortney Cox

Advisor: Lewis Sheats

Raleigh
NC

SpeechMasterPro

Western Michigan University

Team: Daniel Floyd

Advisor: Lara Hobson

Kalamazoo
MI

Strokeflow

Johns Hopkins University

Team: Sam Einhorn, Zach Bredl, Emily Hadley, Sofia Diez

Advisor: Phil Phan

Baltimore
MD

Tibah

Binghamton University

Team: David Axelrod, Mauricio Morales

Advisor: Ken Mcleod

Binghamton
NY

Torridity Instrument Heating Solutions LLC

University of Wisconsin - Madison

Team: Lizzy Svigelj, Austin Kyle, Zach Klayman

Advisor: Michael Williams

Madison
WI

Upright Kids

University of Wisconsin - Oshkosh

Team: Dylan Parks, Brad Ploch

Advisor: Jordan Rhodes

Oshkosh
WI

Vowel Inc.

Babson College

Team: James Cheng, Thomas Lehman

Advisor: Yashiro Yamakawa

Babson Park
MA

Yellow Card

Auburn University

Team: Chris Maurice

Advisor: Lakami Baker

Auburn
AL

About the e-Fest Speakers 

Dick Schulze founded Best Buy Co. in 1983, and as CEO for 19 years led it to become the dominant consumer electronics retailer in the U.S. The company’s 2015 revenue was $40 billion. Through the Richard M. Schulze Family Foundation, Schulze has continued to fund initiatives that support education, human & social services, and health & medicine.

Daymond John is a regular of the ABC weekly television show Shark Tank, which received the 2015 and 2014 Emmy Awards for Outstanding Structured Reality Programming. The show features entrepreneurs who present their business concepts to a panel (John, a fashion and branding expert who founded the FUBU clothing company; billionaire Mark Cuban; real estate mogul Barbara Corcoran; Lori Greiner, known as “The Queen of QVC”; tech innovator Robert Herjavec; and venture capitalist Kevin O’Leary). The show is in its eighth season.

About the Schulze School of Entrepreneurship

The Schulze School of Entrepreneurship is based at the Opus College of Business at the University of St. Thomas in Minneapolis. It is the only of its kind within a business school, providing undergraduate and graduate entrepreneurship programs, public entrepreneurial and business education, and opportunities for funding new ventures. Innovators, serial entrepreneurs, small businesses, change makers and future business leaders come together in this hub of entrepreneurial thinking to recognize, explore and exploit opportunities. The Schulze School’s centers and institutes provide consulting, networking and small business incubators to help launch new endeavors and further solidify established ones. It serves 221 undergraduates who are majoring in entrepreneurship and nearly 400 who have taken entrepreneurship courses.

About EIX

Launched in 2014, Entrepreneur & Innovation Exchange (EIX.org) is a free online publication and learning platform that aims to dramatically improve the success rate of new business ventures. Dedicated to entrepreneurship students, professors and practitioners, EIX is funded by the Richard M. Schulze Family Foundation. It is designed to advance and share the best research and practice of entrepreneurship, and make it relevant and accessible to both aspiring and practicing entrepreneurs. Dozens of universities have made it part of their entrepreneurship curricula.

Search Terms: Student entrepreneurs, eFest2017, eFest, student innovators, business plans, business ideas

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James Beal
James Beal
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Cite this Article

DOI: 10.17919/X9C018
Beal, J. (2016, November 10). 'park & diamond' takes top e-fest prize. Entrepreneur & Innovation Exchange. Retrieved July 27, 2024, from https://eiexchange.com/content/246-park-diamond-takes-top-e-fest-prize
Beal, James. "'Park & Diamond' Takes Top e-Fest Prize" Entrepreneur & Innovation Exchange. 10 Nov. 2016. Web 27 Jul. 2024 <https://eiexchange.com/content/246-park-diamond-takes-top-e-fest-prize>.