UW Students Will Present Business Plans in $30K Entrepreneurship Competition Friday

March 27, 2012

University of Wyoming students will present a wide range of business plans Friday, March 30, in the John P. Ellbogen $30K Entrepreneurship Competition at the College of Business Building.

The competition begins at 9 a.m. in Room 123.

The competition encourages students to act on their talents, ideas and energy to produce tomorrow's leading businesses. The $30K competition awards cash prizes to outstanding teams of student entrepreneurs who submit their business plans for new ventures showing significant business potential.

UW undergraduates and graduate students are encouraged to enter the competition. Teams that combine members from various academic disciplines also are encouraged to compete. The John P. Ellbogen $30K Entrepreneurship Competition was known as the UW 10K Competition until 2011.

For more information about the competition, visit the website at https://www.uwyo.edu/business/ellbogen-30k/ or contact Rachel Stevens in the College of Business Management and Marketing Department, at (307) 766-3124 or e-mail rstevens@uwyo.edu.

Listed are the finalists, businesses and times of student presentations:

9:10 a.m. -- PlanktOMICS seeks to be an innovative leader in providing biotechnological services and products for an emerging algal biomass industry. The company provides advanced phenotype analysis and screening services, custom algal vector design and construction, algal transformation and gene expression analysis. Levi Lowder, a molecular biology doctoral candidate, is team leader and head bioengineer. Partners are Stephen Herbert, algal phenotyping specialist and senior adviser; Jacob Miller, laboratory service and business specialist; and staff consultant, Min-Hyung Ryu, genetic engineering and molecular biology consultant and a molecular biology doctoral candidate.

9:50 a.m. -- Hot Power Yoga offers a fitness-based form of yoga in a high-temperature studio for the brand new yogi (yoga enthusiast) or the yogi in search of something new. The business offers a rigorous exercise with a mental workout. Team members are sister and brother, Mallory and Cheyenne Wortham. Mallory graduated from UW in 2008 with a finance degree and minor in accounting, and also an MBA in 2009. Cheyenne is a senior studying marketing and economics.

10:30 a.m. -- 7200 Ft. Productions is a professional service provider, offering online video marketing services to business clients. Team members are Emily Robinson, marketing major with minors in psychology and sustainable business practices; and Daniel Adams, management major with minors in entrepreneurship and finance. Both are seniors.

11:10 a.m. -- Vertikle Enterprises has developed a project that will investigate a novel separation technique to safely purify specific proteins for people affected by blood disease. "The proposed technique will have a profound effect on the future pharmaceutical industry, setting a new standard for human safety," the developers say.

Team members are Walter Wilson, a physics major; Sharlee Mahoney, chemical engineering; Qihang Sun, a chemical engineering doctoral candidate; Zhuoyan Sun; an environmental separation techniques doctoral candidate; Douglas Wilson, a clinical practitioner from Cheyenne; Brendan Bryant, a recent UW political science graduate; and team adviser and consultant, David Thayer, a UW Department of Physics and Astronomy lecturer.

1 p.m. -- Greek Me is an online event management software system that will help Greek organization chapters to easily organize events by simplifying the event planning processes, increasing event visibility and attendance, reducing costs and saving time. Team members are Zeb Fross and Odion Oisamoje. Both are computer science majors with minors in business.

1:40 p.m. -- MudSlide Tech specializes in producing "slide gloves" for longboarders. The leather gloves have hard, plastic "pucks" with Velcro on the underside of the palm and fingers that not only protect a longboard rider's hands from injury, but allow the riders to stop themselves quickly and safely, even at high speeds. Jeff Watters, a mechanical engineering student, is the developer.

Find us on Instagram (Link opens a new window)Find us on Facebook (Link opens a new window)Find us on Twitter (Link opens a new window)Find us on LinkedIn (Link opens a new window)Find us on YouTube (Link opens a new window)