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Past Winners
Kicking off mid-September and running through early May, the annual entrepreneurship competition has concluded nine successful years. Our tenth year begins September 2009. Over the years we have made numerous improvements and adjustments to the competition. These have resulted in a greater intensity among the competitors, higher quality plans and teams, and a significantly increased learning experience along with an enhanced pathway to launch and operation. A brief summary of each year's structure, followed by a synopsis the winning teams, follows.
| 2008-2009For the first time, the competition went citywide, with students from New York City colleges other than Baruch invited to participate. Included were eleven CUNY colleges and ten private colleges. This expansion was very well-received and continues for 2009-2010, with additional colleges invited. Of the 99 teams submitting concept papers, 40 made it to Round 2 -- 30 in the traditional business track and ten in the social venture track. Of these 40, ten became finalists. The winners: Traditional Business Track1st place ($10,000 cash award and $20,000 seed money) Pandora's Wish Amanda Allen, Rob Brueckmann, Erik Kopelman, Noa Walsky, Robard Williams (Fordham University) Pandora's Wish is a New York City-based on-line gift registry service dedicated to uniting the City's vibrant community of independent merchants and service providers wth local couples and individuals around a variety of gift-giving occasions.
2nd place ($5,000 cash award) Crosby's Gregory Domres, Josh Crosby (Baruch College) Crosby's has developed and is bringing to market an ultra-endurance non-toxic high performance deodorant, comprising only natural ingredients.
3rd place ($2,500 cash award) Students Globe Rohit Phadtare, Dhaval Desia, Saurabh Nandwani (Pace University) Students Globe will be an online one-stop source of immediate and necessary services, such as cell phones, insurance, banking, credit cards, and retail connections and discounts, for international college students coming to the US to study.
Best improvement of an existing model prize ($1,000 cash award) Autoscreen Jordan Stewart, Nathan Weiss (Columbia University) Autoscreen is a software platform built to optimize the process of finding study participants in the qualitative marketing research industry.
Creativity prize ($1,000 cash award) Goodsport Designs Adrienne Mercante, Christine Mercante (Baruch College) Goodsport Designs is a women's active apparel brand designed specifically for commuting and recreational cyclists. The product line is a new concept for active apparel that responds to the lack of suitable clothing options for female cyclists.
Social consciousness prize ($1,000 cash award) Simply Green Affairs Kimberly Uquillas, Moet Anglin (Baruch College) Simply Green Affairs is an eco friendly company that specializes in corporate and social green event planning and coordination. Its primary mission is to save the planet, one event at a time.
Social Entrepreneurship Track1st place ($10,000 cash award and $30,000 seed money) Renaissance Ashok Kamal, Sayaka Eto, Kevin Ng, Varun Vummidi, Yuhsin Chang (Baruch College) Renaissance, now known as Bennu, is dedicated to creating quality, stylish backpacks, travel bags, and luggage, out of overlooked recycled materials. Its mission is to serve the practical needs of customers while protecting the environment through sustainable business practices and products.
Honorable mention prize ($1,000 cash award) Karan Saran Kaba, Saranfi Kaba (Baruch College) Karan is an innovative approach to dealing with the lack of secondary school education in Guinea, West Africa. It will give scholarships to children in grades 7 through 12 and also will provide monthly allowances to their parents to replace the revenue they forego by sending their children to school.
Honorable mention prize ($1,000 cash award) Stepping Stone Keema Davis, Cyriel Dikoume (Baruch College) Stepping Stone is a non-profit organization dedicated to providing foster children with the practical tools, resources, and moral support they need to successfully transition from foster care into independent living. | 2007-2008In its eighth year, 320 students registered. Of the 77 teams submitting concept papers, 41 passed to the second round, including eight in the social venture track. The winners: Traditional Business Track:1st place ($10,000 cash award and $20,000 seed money) iSight Media Stephen Forte, Jason Nocco, Dmitriy Malinovskiy iSight Media is a unique Internet based online advertising network leveraging patentable technology to brand advertisers in various consumer and financial services sectors.
2nd place ($5,000 cash award and $20,000 seed money) Mintfinder Michael Pancheri, Sebastyan Zaborowski, Stanislav Mamonov Mintfinder is a marketing service that targets online retailers by providing personalized product recommendations to web site shoppers.
3rd place ($2,500 cash award) The Bubble Hotel Leonid Ptokhov, Dovile Ivoskute Godwin The Bubble Hotel is a hospitality venture that will develop capsule-style hotels in big airports as low cost accommodation for short stay travelers.
Honorable mention ($1,000 cash award) Snartle Petar Petrov, Noah Trugman Snartle.com is a web site where individuals can learn a foreign language through an innovative approach by reading online.
Social Entrepreneurship Track:
1st place ($10,000 cash award and $10,000 seed money) Blue Skies Project Melanie Lavelle, Jeong Bae, Deana Murtha The Blue Skies Project will help lift families out of poverty by providing them with easy access to free information regarding work support benefits, thus cutting through the delays, red tape, and typical difficulties encountered by people seeking such help.
Honorable mention ($1,000 cash award) The Healing Yoga Project Barbara Beatus, Sylvia Mlynarska The Healing Yoga Project will improve the quality of life of individuals suffering from physical illnesses and of those who care for them, by providing low cost access to yoga, meditation, and mind/body wellness programs.
| 2006-2007In its seventh year, 230 atudents registered for the competition. Concepts were submitted by 51 teams; 33 were accepted, including six in the new social venture pilot category. By May, nine teams qualified for the finals. The winners: Traditional Business Track:1st place ($10,000 cash award and $35,000 seed money) Sports Connection Caitlin O'Halloran, Pritesh Damani Sports Connection, now Winito, is an online portal for recreational sports and amateur sports activity management. It has many of the features of a community web site, but focuses on facilitating sports team organization and providing team and player statistics to interested parties. (www.winito.com)
2nd place ($5,000 cash award) Zippromotions Nehal Shah, Vaishali Shah Zippromotions.com intends to be a local promotiona and discount search web site with two unique features: using any computer or mobile device, promotions and discounts can be searched for in and around a zip code; money can be earned by sharing listing revenue.
3rd place ($2,500 cash award) L'Entent Ellorah Ghosh, Oshry Lev-Har, Pavan Mirpuri, Jach Wu L'Entent will create a shirt brand for professional women, initialy those working in New York City. Shirts will be high quality, custom made, business attire.
Honorable mention ($1,000 cash prize) Delta Force Brenda Yagmin, Mary Chamberlain, Christine Walsh Delta Force will operate a portal web site for small business leaders that will provide articles, vendors, and networking contacts specific to the needs and interests of each visitor, solving the universal problem for businesses of how to get fast, simple, free solutions by making sense of extensive Internet data.
Social Entrepreneurship Track:1st place ($5,000 cash award and $15,000 seed money The South Bronx Food Cooperative Zena Nelson, Ilene Bach, Yoonshin Kang The South Bronx Food Cooperative is member-operated, emphasizing healthy food and lifestyle habits., especially for low income residents. In addition to food, the Coop offers nutrition seminars, health classes and cooking classes to members and non-members. (www.sbxfc.org)
Honorable mention ($1,000 award) My Farmer Matthew Mills, Garret Akerson My Farmer will provide a solution to both producer and consumer groups via a centralized portal that will give farmers and distributors customer tracking, accounting, supply/demand estimates, customer feedback, e-marketing tools, logistics, a virtual farm stand, and online payment processing.
| 2005-2006 In its sixth year 297 students registered for the competition. Concepts were submitted by 58 teams; 30 were accepted. By May, ten teams qualified for the finals. The winners: - 1st place ($10,000 cash award and $25,000 seed money)
Lunchtable Media Delshon Chestnut, Neelam Desai, Hashim Warren Lunchtable is launching a network of weblogs covering the news, culture, and politics of African Americans and Hispanics. Writers will be hired and advertising sold to firms targeting those demographic groups. - 2nd place ($5,000 cash award and $25,000 seed money)
Career Dish Sante Antonelli, Sandra O'Malley, Jeff Schacher Career Dish is a focused on-line service for restaurants seeking employees and persons seeking restaurant positions. Its many features simplify the search for both those groups, providing more efficient and less costly matching than is possible vie traditional employment agencies. - 3rd place ($2,500 cash award)
MoMentum Dinorah Delfin-Cardozo, Andrew Jozefiak, Michael Kozed-Perkins MoMentum designs and markets special support garments for women during and after pregnancy. These not only are revolutionary in function, but also in style and form. - Honorable Mention ($1,000 cash award)
Simply Green Meryem Demitras, Esther Kuperman, Manny Ben Ohr Simply Green will sell healthy snacks and light meals from kiosks in airports and train stations, as an alternative to the high fat, poor nutrition items typically found in those venues.
| 2004-2005In its fifth year, 285 students registered for the competition, resulting in 78 concept papers. Of these, 31 were accepted. Nine teams made it to the finals. The winners: - 1st place ($10,000 cash award and $50,000 seed money)
OnShore Partners
Mukunda Krishnaswamy, Adrian Gawdiak, Jim Mumm, Brian Power
OnShore works with US firms seeking to decrease costs and improve operational efficiency. Their services include evaluation of current business processes, opportunity identification, vendor selection, and assistance with contract negotiations. OnShore also provides clients with after sales support to ensure that the service provider partnership delivers desired business results. - 2nd place tie ($3,750 cash award to each team)
JaLe Design House
Jorge Miranda, Kunter Barlak, Lijo Joseph, Gale Lee
JaLe offers consumer- and custom-designed bedding for children via an interactive web site. Song Exchange Market
Omer Carmel, Boris Davidson
Song Exchange provides a web-based site for investment in up-and-coming musicians. - Honorable mention ($1,000 cash award)
Changing Hands
Monifa Watson, Baaba Halm, Koren L. Vaughan
Changing Hands is a specialy consignment shop for maternity clothing, baby clothing, and baby care items.
| 2003-2004 For the fourth year of the competition, 215 students registered. Of the 67 teams submitting concept papers, 25 passed to the second round. Ten of those teams became finalists after the draft plan round. The winners: - 1st place ($10,000 cash award and $40,000 seed money)
TimeshareXchange
Yao Eric Huang, Tanuj Goel, Yujun Liu
TimeshareXchange will provide an industry-leading web-based virtual exchange place that facilitates rentals of timeshare properties. It will improve the flexibility and manageability of timeshare ownership, promote liquidity of timeshare properties, foster growth of the timeshare market and bring value to the resort developers, timeshare owners, and general travelers. - 2nd place ($5,000 cash award and $10,000 see money)
StarLinx
Natanel Kovari, Gabriel Eldor, Arie Waissman
StarLinx will provide casting agencies with a unique and innovative digital casting tool that gives agencies a fast, convenient, focused, safe and reliable tool for electronic casting, and provides performers with an inexpensive, simple, rapid means for submitting photo-video-audio resume packages. StarLinx also will build an online community for performers, where they can share information, have discussions and meet fellow performers. - 3rd place ($2,500 cash award)
The Tea Bar
Andrea Bereck, Maya Haddad, Ruslan Mardonov
The Tea Bar is a retail and food services business that will Americanize the tea drinking culture, creating a lucrative market for their premium tea products and specialty teas in a high style, comfortable, calming environment where customers can enjoy a contemporary spin on the authentic tea experience and also purchase high-end tea accessories and loose teas in-store or through a website. - Honorable mention ($1,000 cash award)
MadreMia
Dinorah Delfin, Brett Ogin, Dionne Thompson
MadreMia is a creator and manufacturer of specially designed maternity and post-partum support garments engineered in keeping with the particular needs of moms and moms to be, combining the support of all the devices currently on the market into one comfortable garment, with smooth contouring, yoked support, lace dcolletage, supple fabrication, and luxurious fabrics.
| 2002-2003For the third year of the competition, 193 students registered. Of the 65 teams submitting concept papers, 39 passed to the second round. Ten of those teams became finalists after the draft plan round. The winners: - 1st place ($10,000 cash award and $45,000 seed money)
 AutoEval
Jason Bass, Adam Ostaszewski
AutoEval will offer used car buyers in the NY/NJ metropolitan area affordable thorough impartial inspections and evaluations of potential vehicle purchases. The company also will provide certifications of used vehicles for dealers. Beginning with one site in a high-density auto business zone in New Jersey, AutoEval will expand by opening sites in additional similar locations and later by franchising.
- 2nd place ($5,000 cash award and $5,000 seed money)
Yummy Pockets - launched as Rico M. Panada
Ricardo Rezk, Marlena Brawer-Fass, Julia Miller, Moupiyasi Mukherjee
Rico M. Panada, LLC launched in 2004. Operations began in September of that year. Its products are now carried in more than 40 supermarkets and health food stores in the New York metro area. Expansion plans, including regional distribution, are under way. Located in Bronx, New York, Rico M. Panada, LLC is a food-processing company specializing in the production and marketing of baked empanadas – five-inch-long, half-moon-shaped, hand-held pocket pies. Only high-quality ingredients are used: organic whole wheat crust filled with a variety of organic beef, chicken, cheeses, grains, legumes, vegetables or any combination of these. They have no trans-fatty acids, preservatives, or chemical flavorings. The empanadas are fully baked, frozen, packaged, and distributed to retailers. The company’s USDA- and FDA-approved plant operates under an established HACCP plan for food safety. Rico M. Panada, LLC sells its baked empanadas to supermarkets, health food stores, cafes, and caterers. Near Baruch, their baked empanadas can be found in the freezer of Natural Green Market (Third Ave & 16th St). Visit the company at www.ricompanada.com
- 3rd place ($2,500 cash award)
 Kognito Solutions, LLC
Ralph Vacca, Shiri Perciger-Cohen, Einav Rahimi
Kognito Solutions applies the latest research in cognitive science and educational psychology to develop superior e-learning platforms and interactive content for use in corporate and academic environments.
Company principals:
Ralph Vacca Director of Research and Development, BBA in Entrepreneurship
Management ('03) Ron Goldman Director of Business Development, BBA in Marketiing Management
('02) Glenn L. Albright, PhD Direector of Academic Research - Honorable Mentions ($1,000 cash award each)
Acameta
Jarrett Bockler, Sundar Natarajan, Dan Ragsdale, Trond Valldal
Acameta is developing software products to help view, track, organize, and save web research by extending to the academic user the advantages of a tailored and personalized meta-search tool with integrated information management technology, spurring productivity. The product will be equally at home in businesses that conduct significant research from on-line data bases and other sources. Baroque Bridal
Henry Wong, Phines Aldecoa-Bracken, David Chen, Ashley Reynolds, Jiewen Xie
Baroque Bridal is a full service studio-based specialty salon providing stylish wedding gowns and accessories tailored specifically for plus-size women. Also available are custom gowns by an in-house designer. Strong emphasis is placed on matching style choices and designs to various body types. Catalog and web support are provided as well. RentBid.com
Aaron Russell, Anna Duenas, Bryan Evans, Ziad Gemayel, Priyamvada Singhee
RentBid.com is a fully informative on-line auction system for New York City apartment
rentals, benefiting both potential renters and landlords by considerably easing the traditional apartment chase. Incorporated are open houses, on-line listing and bidding, and broker services, all at one-third the typical broker commission.
| 2001-2002 In the second year, 135 students registered and 43 teams submitted concept papers; 8 proceeded to the second round. The winners: - 1st place Two-way tie ($7,500 cash award to each team)
The Banana Islands
Michelle Bissette, David Chen, Gregory Francois, Amrith Jamoona, Henry Wong
Banana Islands retails its own brand of high quality chocolate-based hot beverages in a variety of complementary flavors, in addition to coffee and tea, sold on campuses and in various city locations from kiosks. BookXchange.com
Kazi Islam, Kelsey Jack, Kwaku Senkyire, Hasan Sheikh, Mohammad Sheikh
BookXchange.com provides a web-based application that students can use to buy, sell, and exchange used texts, or to participate in text auctions. - 3rd place ($2,500 cash award)
Nicher Direct
Qui Huang, John Hui, Jiewen Xie
Nicher Direct supplies businesses with design and implementation of plans for direct marketing to ethnic Chinese, specializing in United States business organizations that use direct mail campaigns targeted at business and residential consumers.
| Over 120 students registered for the competition. Of the 45 teams submitting concept papers, 11 proceeded to the second round. The winners: - 1st place ($5,000 cash award and $50,000 seed money)
Global IT
Rajat Beri, Kavita Beri, Sudeep Jose John, H.V. Krishnamurthy, Rakesh Kumar, Rameshwar Mahay, Neeraj Tiwari
Global IT is an international job matching and placement service for information technology professionals, focused on highly trained professionals in India and businesses in the United States and England, streamlining the process of finding and placing employees who meet corporate needs. This group started their company and they are still in business. - 2nd place ($2,500 cash award)
TravelTrak
Marc Benathen, Michele Scotto DiCesare, Dmitry Genzer
TravelTrak provides a high-end instant access merchandise tracking and contents-condition system and service for importers and exporters who use containerized oceangoing shipping. Information gathered by miniaturized electronics placed in the containers, using global positioning satellites and environmental sensors, is beamed to customers wirelessly. - 3rd place ($1,000 cash award)
MB2MB
Kevin Footman, John McBride, Vincent Miller, Aisha Norflett, Leon Sears
MB2MB offers complete consulting, training, and advisement services for minority businesses, providing special assistance for startups and small businesses striving to succeed. In addition to help with business planning and account management, they aid in acquiring business loans and other forms of financing.
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