University of Arkansas Teams Score in More National Business Plan Competitions

Photo Submitted

Silicon Solar Solutions Team, left to right, Seth Shumate, Stephen Ritterbush, Douglas Hutchings, and Brent Bertelsen

FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. – One University of Arkansas student team has won two national business plan competitions and a second team has placed third. Carol Reeves, associate professor of management in the Sam M. Walton College of Business, is faculty adviser for both teams.

The Silicon Solar Solutions team, represented by Seth Shumate and Stephen Ritterbush, won the energy division and $25,000 in the 2010 Global Venture Challenge hosted at the Oak Ridge National Laboratories, March 24-26. More than 50 judges, including representatives of 15 venture capital firms, selected the winners based on the quality of the technology and the product's projected strength in the marketplace.

Another half of the team, Douglas Hutchings and Brent Bertelsen, participating as Green Valley Solar but with the same business plan, won a business plan competition at the University of Manitoba and $15,000. Shumate and Hutchings are doctoral students in the microelectronics-photonics program in the Graduate School. Their advisers in electrical engineering are Magda El-Shenawee and Hameed Naseem. Ritterbush is pursuing a Master of Business Administration and Bertelsen is pursuing a Master of Accountancy, both in the Sam M. Walton College of Business. This win also qualifies the team to enter The Moot Corp competition, the Super Bowl of business plan competitions in May at the University of Texas at Austin.

Silicon Solar Solutions’ business addresses the cost and efficiency challenges of manufacturing solar energy by replacing the expensive top layer of solar cells with a thinner, large-grain polysilicon technology that allows panels to be produced at lower manufacturing temperatures.

A second team, InnerVision, won third place in the University of San Francisco International Business Plan Competition and $2,000. The InnerVision team includes Elizabeth Slape, Jeff Veltkamp, Annelie Recking and Anoop Prasanna, all in the Master of Business Administration program at the Walton College; and Bryon Western, a master’s student in the Graduate School’s microelectronics-photonics program. Western won an addition $2,000 in the elevator pitch competition. The panel of judges at this competition consisted of professional entrepreneurs, venture capitalists and angel investors, representing the key players of Silicon Valley business.

InnerVision’s trademarked product, the Smart Turbine Blade, enables power-generation facilities to radically change their maintenance programs and save billions of dollars each year on interval-based maintenance. The technology captures real-time diagnostic information from the inside of the turbine and transmits data wirelessly to the outside.

Reeves, who also holds the Cecil and Gwen Cupp Applied Professorship in Entrepreneurship, said, “Including our wins this spring at the University of Louisville, Carnegie Mellon University and the University of Cincinnati, University of Arkansas teams have brought home more than $110,000.” Reeves is the faculty adviser for all these teams.

The BiologicsMD team won first place and $15,000 in the Cardinal Challenge at the University of Louisville on Feb. 20. They also won the $500 spirit award for the most enthusiasm. Just one week later, these students took first place and $10,000 at the University of Cincinnati Spirit of Enterprise MBA business plan competition and second place ($250) in the trade show booth competition.

In mid-March, the InnerVision team won a $20,000 investment in their proposed company and $20,000 in legal fees at the McGinnis Venture Competition, hosted at Carnegie Mellon University.

Reeves said, “From what I can tell the University of Arkansas is the only university to have more than one bid to the Global Moot Corp competition so far. It is a great honor to just qualify to compete in these business plan competitions and to have five national wins is remarkable and a testament to the work these students have done.”