University of Arkansas Teams Take First and Third Place in Business Plan 'Super Bowl'

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Team members of both first place 2010 Moot Corp winner BiologicsMD and third place winner Silicon Solar Solutions gather around their faculty adviser Carol Reeves (holding check). l. to r. Misty Stevens, Robyn Goforth, Paul Mlaker, Michael Thomas, Brent Bertelson, Douglas Hutchings, Seth Shumate, and Stephen Ritterbush.

FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. – A University of Arkansas student business plan won the top place in a major business plan competition for the fourth time this spring. The plan is for a patent-pending, pre-clinical, osteoporosis medication trademarked as OsteoFlor. A second University of Arkansas team took the third place in the competition.

However, this is not just any competition; it is the 27th annual Global Moot Corp Competition, the “Super Bowl of World Business Plan Competitions,” hosted by the McCombs School of Business at the University of Texas at Austin on May 6-9.

This year, Moot Corp featured 40 teams from 12 countries, including Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, Colombia, France, Germany, Great Britain, Mexico, Norway and Thailand. To be eligible to enter the Moot Corp Competition, the oldest new-venture competition in the world, teams must have been the top winners at specified competitions around the world.

The BiologicsMD team that created the OsteoFlor plan was crowned the “Moot Corp Global Champions,” a title that earned them $25,000 in cash and more than $110,000 in in-kind awards. The team includes Paul Mlakar, Michael Thomas and Misty Stevens, all students in the Sam M. Walton College of Business managerial Master of Business Administration; and Robyn Goforth, a research professor in biological sciences who was earning a Certificate in Entrepreneurship. Carol Reeves, Walton College associate professor of management, is the team’s faculty adviser.

The second runner-up team from the University of Arkansas is Silicon Solar Solutions LLC. This team developed a plan to address 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 the panels to be produced at lower manufacturing temperatures.

The Silicon Solar team includes Stephen Ritterbush, an M.B.A. student in the Walton College; Brent Bertelsen, a Walton College master of accountancy student; and Seth Shumate and Douglas Hutchings, doctoral students in microelectronics-photonics program in the College of Engineering. Reeves, who holds the Cecil and Gwendolyn Cupp Applied Professorship in Entrepreneurship, is also this team’s faculty adviser. The team qualified for the Moot Corp competition after the win at the University of Manitoba.

The first runner-up was a team from Carnegie Mellon University and the third runner-up was a team representing Indiana University and Purdue University.

Walton College Dean Dan Worrell said, “This is a phenomenal win for the University of Arkansas, the Walton College, and Dr. Reeves, especially in competing against schools from around the world. Both of these teams have already started their business operations. Where others see turmoil in the current national economy, these students have taken advantage of opportunity.”

Reeves said, “The teams’ successes this year have simply been astounding. No other school in the world had even two teams win a national competition, but the University of Arkansas had three teams who won seven national and international competitions, as well as sweep the Arkansas Governor’s Cup competition.”

BiologicsMD is the first team to win both the Rice University and Moot Corp business plan competitions. The University of Arkansas is the third university to have two teams in the finals at Moot Corp. The other two were the University of Louisville, which had two teams last year, and Carnegie-Mellon University, which had two teams in 2004.

As the Moot Corp Global Champions, the BiologicsMD team receives $25,000 in cash; the Austin Technology Incubator Launch Package worth $25,000 and the opportunity for a one-year membership which includes strategic business consulting services and mentoring from a team of industry experts, office space, and access to discounted legal, accounting, and businesses services from top tier providers); a full page ad in Inc. magazine worth $60,000; consulting with the McCombs School of Business entrepreneurship faculty worth $25,000; and an invitation to join Rob Adams, McCombs faculty member and director of the Moot Corp competition, in closing the NASDAQ Stock Market on June 11.

BiologicsMD has already garnered wins this spring at the Rice University Business Plan Competition (grand prize and more than $419,840) in awards); University of Cincinnati Spirit of Enterprise M.B.A. Business Plan Competition (first place and $10,000); Cardinal Challenge at the University of Louisville (first place and $15,000); and 2010 Donald W. Reynolds Arkansas Governor’s Cup (second place and $10,000). The team received an automatic bid to the Moot Corp after winning the Louisville competition. BiologicsMD is pursuing a Department of Defense Small Business Innovation Research grant to help it go through clinical trials and finally to market.

As second runner up, Silicon Solar Solutions LLC won $3,000 in the Moot Corp competition. Also this spring, the Silicon Solar Solutions team won the energy division and $25,000 in the 2010 Global Venture Challenge hosted at the Oak Ridge National Laboratories. The team won a business plan competition at the University of Manitoba and $15,000. Silicon Solar Solutions won third place and $5,000 in the graduate division of Donald W. Reynolds Arkansas Governor’s Cup. In addition to Reeves, the team’s advisers in electrical engineering are Magda El-Shenawee and Hameed Naseem. The team is now working with the University of Arkansas Technology Licensing Office and Arkansas Research and Technology Park to start the business.

Last year in the Moot Corp competition, a Walton College team, Tears for Life, was first runner up and winner of $5,000. Tears for Life proposed a screening test that uses proteins found in tears to detect breast cancer.