MADISON – Twenty-seven students at the University of Wisconsin-Madison who have devised business plans for products – ranging from high velocity air plows for snow removal to digital displays for windows – will face off in the G. Steven Burrill Technology Business Plan Competition on Friday, April 20 at Grainger Hall, 975 University Avenue.
Showing a spirit of interdisicplinary problem solving, students from 5 colleges submitted ideas for a diverse range of businesses this year, including an advertising system using GPS-equipped bicycles on college campuses, a wind powered water recovery system, and a cancer screening technique.
“The breadth of student participation underscores how powerful and imaginative ideas to address society’s needs can really emerge anywhere on campus,” says competition Director Anne Miner. “This really fulfills the dreams of the competition’s founders.”
Ten teams will have 20 minutes each to pitch their ideas to a panel of experts, with presentations expected to last from 8 a.m.-1 p.m. in 2120 Grainger Hall. The presentations are open to the public. In addition, presentations will be streamed live on the contest website, www.bus.wisc.edu/burrill, with support from Madison technology firm Sonic Foundry.
At stake is $22,000 in prize money. The winning team will walk away with $10,000, while second-, third- and fourth-place winners will receive $7,000, $4,000 and $1,000 respectively.
This year’s entrants join 246 competition alumni, some of whom have gone on to launch, build and sometimes sell their businesses in areas as wide-ranging as financial education products, drug delivery systems and agricultural technologies. “The level of entrepreneurial activity we see in the alumni demonstrates the important, ongoing impact of this experience on the students,” offer competition associate directors Carol Aspinwall and John Surdyk.
Business experts will evaluate the quality of the teams’ business plans and presentations to identify those that are capable of producing vibrant businesses. Judges include: Mark Baker, Strategic Leverage Partners; Scott Button, Venture Investors of Wisconsin; Dick Leazer, Wisconsin Investment Partners; and Cheryl Weston, The Douglas Stewart Company.
Following a panel with competition alumni from 2:45 p.m. to 4:00 p.m., winners of the contest will be announced.
The G. Steven Burrill Technology Business Plan Competition is held each spring in the UW-Madison School of Business. The contest is a cross-campus effort led by the deans of the School of Business, the College of Engineering, the School of Law, and the College of Agricultural and Life Sciences. The cross-campus Initiative for Studies in Technology Entrepreneurship also sponsors the event.
Within the business school, it is a joint venture of the Erdman Center for Operations and Technology Management, the Weinert Center for Entrepreneurship, and the program for Strategic Management in the Life and Engineering Sciences.
