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Venture Challenge 2003 Benefits More Than Students

Venture Challenge 2003 Benefits More Than Students

Individuals Find Many Reasons to Judge Business Plan Competition

BY JENNIFER ZWIEBEL

This month, 20 teams of MBA students from around the United States, Mexico, Canada and Australia will converge on San Diego to compete in Venture Challenge 2003.

The event is the 14th annual international student business plan competition hosted by San Diego State University’s Entrepreneurial Management Center.

The event will take place at the Hilton San Diego Mission Valley on March 27-28. Teams will receive valuable feedback from a panel of judges, and the team that has the best combination of product, plan, and presentation will receive a prize of $15,000 in venture capital funding.

While benefits for the students are obvious, local business leaders who serve as judges also reap rewards by participating in the event.

More than a dozen local business leaders and entrepreneurs will serve as judges. And their reasons for volunteering their time are as varied as their business experiences.

“I’ve been contributing to Venture Challenge for years because it encourages progressive business ideas,” said Jim Morris, president of JBM Properties, Inc. “I feel that it’s the responsibility of the business community to cultivate entrepreneurial activity in San Diego, across the country, and around the world.”

The ability to track trends and the perceived needs of consumers is another compelling reason for some professionals to serve as judges. Bob Leonard, former president of Ticketmaster said, “The quality of the business plans that I’ve seen is outstanding. Through this event I not only provide guidance to young entrepreneurs, but I help myself by being able to watch trends unfold and get fresh perspectives and ideas for my own business purposes.”

– Wide Range Of Local Businesses Represented

This year’s crop of entrepreneurs includes a team that intends to capitalize on global initiatives for clean energy by producing and marketing economical and environmentally friendly energy systems using next generation biomass fuel technologies. Another team aims to become the leader of driver and passenger safety on the road, focusing on a line of products that addresses driver fatigue and drowsiness detection while behind the wheel.

Judges in this year’s event include representation from InnoCal Ventures, Enterprise Partners Venture Capital, Hamilton Apex Technology Partners, The Friedman Family Foundation, Carrot Capital, Gentopix, Inc., and Domain Associates.

In addition to the members of the competition, the judging panel meets with each team in a spirit of consultation and feedback where teams discuss their business plans in a non-competitive format.

“We judge the plans from different perspectives and looking at all angles, from the hands-on, highly discerning approach of an investor or banker, or playing the devil’s advocate as a potential consumer evaluating the created product,” said Mary Allis Curran, senior vice president, Union Bank of California. “These methods help the students come to real terms with their business plan.”

SDSU MBA student Duncan McLaren, who along with fellow students Trevor Page and Mike Jue will submit to Venture Challenge their plan to develop specialized surfboard technology, said the feedback the judges provide is simply invaluable and irreplaceable.

“We get a lot of the structure, the logic, the rationale for creating a business plan from our academic training. But from the judges from the business community we’re getting a taste of the trends and the fashions in the investment community right now , the hands-on, nitty-gritty perspective,” he said.

Sanford Ehrlich, executive director of the EMC, said every student who competes in business plan competitions such as Venture Challenge comes away better equipped to succeed because of their interaction with the judges.

Schools participating in Venture Challenge 2003 include: Bond University-Australia,

Sponsors of Venture Challenge include Qualcomm Inc.; the Nasdaq Educational Foundations; KPBS; Ernst & Young LLP; Union Bank of California; Procopio, Cory, Hargreaves and Savitch LLP; the San Diego Foundation’s Weingart-Price Fund; Silicon Valley Bank, and other community supporters in the regional entrepreneurship community.

Zwiebel is involved with university advancement, MarComm, for San Diego State University.

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