Winners of New Venture Creation Competition Announced
Saturday, April 29, 2006
Student teams from Indiana University, the University of Evansville and Ball State University were recognized tonight (April 28) for garnering top prizes in the University of Evansville’s first New Venture Creation Competition.
Indiana University's team representing the company, "PixYour," took first place and a $15,000 prize, as well as an extra $1,000 for the most creative idea and another $1,000 for the best presentation in the competition. The team comprised of Chris Carriero and Mandar Vadhavkar and advised by IU professor Thomas Hustad of the Kelley School of Business, received their award April 28 in a presentation at Old National Bank in Evansville.
The company, PixYour, will create and maintain electronic, self-serve, photo-taking kiosks, as well as a website which will store these images for easy sharing purposes. The creators said in the executive summary that their idea stems from the fact that "tourists will always desire unique souvenirs and photo memories from wherever they go." PixYour's core business is to transmit digital images from its kiosks throughout the world and maintain those images on the PixYour.com website for storage and sharing purposes. The PixYour kiosks would also have the capability to transmit digital postcards, to take and quickly transmit formatted pictures taken from a camera inside the kiosk, and upload digital camera memory cards, which can be immediately viewed by friends or sent as a digital postcard. The company plans to go world-wide first – focusing in Rome, where more than 9 million tourists arrive each year.
Second place in the competition and an award of $10,000 went to the University of Evansville business of "Bitsan," founded by UE computer science major Brian Howenstein. Bitsan was created to solve the problem of managing and collaborating on documents. "Too often, vital documents are lost, overwritten, corrupted or accidentally deleted – resulting in the waste of precious time and effort," according to the executive summary. They also noted that organization of documents in folders is rigid, impractical and outdated. Bitsan's solution is a new way of managing documents. "It is a web-based document management and collaboration application that enables the user to be more creative." The system would allow features such as versioning, tagging, locking and search to eliminate boundaries currently presented in traditional document management. The company will operate as a tiered, monthly subscription service.
Third place and $7,500 went to Higher Sites Productions, a company formed by Ball State University students Helen Kibby and Elizabeth Thompson. Higher Sites Productions will create custom-made videos for individuals who have adopted children from countries outside the United States. The executive summary explains the importance to new parents this service could be: "Often when families travel to a foreign country to collect their new child, they take hours of amateur video or hundreds of still pictures in an effort to record their journey. Higher Sites Productions takes the parents' video and still images and tastefully edits them together with music to create a captivating video which forever preserves the adoptive parents’ memories. Kibby and Thompson found in researching their business that nearly 23,000 children were adopted from foreign countries by U.S. citizens in 2005, so there is a large market for their business to approach.
The University of Evansville's New Venture Creation Competition was designed to aid student teams in funding and beginning new business ventures. Fourteen teams presented their ideas to a board of investors who spent the day evaluating the merits of the plans. Each team demonstrated the characteristics that would make its business successful, as well as the need for funding.
"This was an amazing competition," said Peter Sherman, coordinator of the competition and assistant professor of management at UE. "The students had outstanding presentations and I think all in attendance were quite impressed. We are very proud of all of them." Sherman also noted the collaborative nature of this event in the community and said that it could not have been done without the assistance of all.
The competition was hosted by UE, and funded by Old National Bank, the University of Evansville and the Metropolitan Evansville Chamber of Commerce. The 14 teams competing were from the University of Evansville, Ball State University, Louisiana State University, Taylor University, Indiana University, Snow College of Utah, University of Kentucky, and Flagler University. Matt Meadors, president and CEO of the Metropolitan Evansville Chamber of Commerce, said he was pleased that innovative students from throughout the state and beyond were able to see Evansville and Southwestern Indiana as a great place to start a new enterprise. "Hopefully this competition sent a message to young people across the country that we want them in our community and we want them to start their businesses and grow and prosper in Southwestern Indiana."
Other business plans presented during the competition included:
Evansville Auto Museum – UE
Too Life Like – UE
Elysian Gym – Louisiana State University
StratoStar Systems – Taylor University
Tri-State Valet Parking – UE
Affiliated – UE
Neatto Corporation – Snow College of Utah
Java Surf – UE
Grass Guyz – Ball State University
Vision-Resume – University of Kentucky
Live Interactive Entertainment – Flagler University
In addition to the funding, winners will have the opportunity to be mentored through Old National Bank, the Midwest Venture Club and the Metropolitan Evansville Chamber of Commerce's Small Business Development Center. Bob Myer of the Midwest Venture Club said he sees hundreds of presentations on potential businesses every year and the ideas and the quality of the presentations was outstanding. "The winner will be invited to present to the Midwest Venture Club, not just because it won, but because it's a good idea," Myers said. "This competition was a great example of what can be done to help a community when people work together."
Bob Jones, president and CEO of Old National Bancorp, said, "We are confident that this creative business enterprise will be a catalyst for continued growth in the entrepreneurial economy in Southwestern Indiana. We wish all of the winners great success in their new business ventures and are happy that Old National Bank could be a part of making their dreams a reality."
(Pictured above (l-r) Catherine Maier of the University of Evansville who won the "most entertaining" award for her presentation of her company, Affiliated; Brian Howenstein, University of Evansville student who won second place for his company, Bitsan; Mandar Vadhavkar and Christopher Carriero of Indiana University, who won first place for their company, PixYour; and Helen Kibby of Ball State University who won third place for her business, Higher Sites Productions.)