$30K Entrepreneurship Competition Final Presentations April 8 at UW

Eight student teams will present their business proposals Friday, April 8, in the John P. Ellbogen $30K Entrepreneurship Competition sponsored by the University of Wyoming College of Business.

The competition begins at 9 a.m. in Room 123 of the College of Business. Awards will be presented following the event.

This semester, 47 teams entered the competition from various disciplines across campus, ranging from undergraduate to doctoral students. The final eight student teams created companies, and each worked with a mentor for the final presentation.

Known as the UW $10K Competition until 2011, the John P. Ellbogen $30K Entrepreneurship Competition encourages students to act on their talents, ideas and energy to produce tomorrow's leading businesses. The competition awards cash prizes to outstanding teams of student entrepreneurs who submit their business plans for new ventures that show significant business potential.

The first-place business proposal will win $15,000, with half awarded after the competition and the balance given after submitting a satisfactory progress report. The winner also will receive space in the Wyoming Technology Business Center for one year to grow the business.

Second prize funds are $7,500, and third place will receive $5,000. Second- and third-place winners will receive half their prize winnings after the competition and the remaining after submitting a progress report. Additional prizes will be given following Friday’s competition.

The eight finalists and their companies are:

-- Cowboy Performance and Manufacturing: Kyle Kuhn, a senior in mechanical engineering, from Laramie, is the team leader. The company will design, manufacture and market high-performance, after-market snowmobile components and provide sophisticated manufacturing services to Laramie and the surrounding area. The company will target two specific areas: the aftermarket snowmobile industry, and the engineering consulting and manufacturing industry.

-- GuardFraug: Rolf Schuster, a senior in computer science, from Big Horn, is the team leader. GuardFraug is a software company focused on innovative applications for consumers’ personal safety and security. The program specifically targets applications for college communities. The SafetyApp provides personal security by allowing each individual user to alter the settings, preferences and use.

-- Med Bow Skis: Weston Walker, a senior in mechanical engineering, from Taylorsville, Utah, is the team leader. His business is an alpine ski design and manufacturing company focused on engineering innovative, unique and high-performance skis. Walker’s team is working on the company’s flagship model, “The Quiver.” The design fills a void in the current ski market so that consumers only have to purchase one pair of skis to fulfill their needs for all mountain skiing.

-- Paradox: Vinay Ramakrishnaiah, a doctoral candidate in electrical engineering, from Udupi, Karnataka, India, is the team leader. Paradox is a solution company, which targets most commercial companies, and also profit/nonprofit organizations, seeking a simple and effective way to get personalized high-performing computer solutions. The company provides a general solution to simplify the development of high-performance parallel applications, which is source code language and platform independent, and also hardware robust.

-- Precision Probiotics: Boris Plotkin, a junior in microbiology, from Denver, Colo., is the team leader. The team is developing a bacterial drug production system that uses a specific probiotic to deliver other drugs. This process will deliver prescription drugs more efficiently and effectively, reducing the need to administer larger amounts of the drug to each patient. This process would save pharmaceutical companies on costs and allow more patients to take different prescriptions without negative side effects.

-- Roti Magic: Dilraj Kaur, a master’s degree candidate in finance, from New Delhi, India, is the team leader. The team is developing a small machine that makes Rotis, similar to tortillas, in about three minutes, compared to 40 minutes it takes to make by hand. The product can help markets overseas where particular types of tortilla/breads are handmade on a regular basis -- mostly by women. The team’s goal is to make a Roti maker available at a competitive price because some units cost more than $500.

-- SanMon: Trevor Trouchon, a sophomore in computer engineering, from Gillette, is the team leader. The SanMon unit now being developed is intended to monitor data from discrete sensors within portable toilets, and use that information to determine if the portable toilet requires maintenance. The final design will include GPS capabilities to record asset locations and solar panels to recharge unit batteries.

-- The Snorin’ Dog: Michael Colarusso, a senior in business administration, from La Jolla, Calif., is the team leader. Snorin’ Dog is a mobile food trailer business created to serve Laramie with college students in mind. The company is quick and, most of all, is convenient with the “highest quality hotdog around.” The company’s next step is to start franchising the business to other college campuses, enabling students to own their own food trailer, while also going to school.

For more information, contact Steve Russell, in the UW College of Business, at (307) 766-4112 or srusse18@uwyo.edu.