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Each winner picked up a total of $20,000 in cash and another $25,000 inbusiness services donated by several Pittsburgh-area law firms experienced inventure-backed business development.
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"Our aim is to give the teams the best advice we can, from the top peoplein the fields of venture and angel investing and entrepreneurship, to enabletheir best chances at successfully launching their company," said Arthur Boni,director of the Donald H. Jones Center for Entrepreneurship at the TepperSchool, which sponsors the competition.
The Tepper School team of Alberto Gandini and Salman Mukhtar won in theLife Sciences track by pitching a business called Tropical Health Systems,which aims to cure malaria with a medical device that purifies infected redblood cells using a magnetic filter.
The University of Manitoba team of Erin Yanchycki, Stephen Chamaa andDaniel Kozier won in the Technology track with Civitech, an early stagecompany developing a system of wireless sensors for monitoring environmentalconditions in buildings. Their first product aims to monitor moisture insidebuilding walls to prevent the growth of mold.
Yale's team of Stuart Murray, David Mueller and Jamie Spivey, won in theSustainable Technology track with Ideal Energy, a plan to install small windturbines on customers' properties and sell them the generated electricity at a10 percent discount on prevailing utility rates.
A team from the University of Louisville's Department of Management andEntrepreneurship won the elevator pitch competition -- a separate $2,000 cashaward -- with Partum Group LLC, a medical device to help physicians monitorthe birth process.
The McGinnis Venture Competition continues to expand internationally.This year, one quarter of competing teams came from outside the U.S.,including teams from India, China, Germany, Colombia and Canada. Helping tofuel the international growth is Tepper School alumnus Sarosh Kumana (MSIA,1977), who sponsored the Sustainable Technology track again this year.
Kumana, founder of the Foundation for a Sustainable Future(http://www.sustainable-future.org), helped sponsor the Al Gore SustainableTechnology Venture Competition in India, which produced the two Indian teamscompeting in the McGinnis Competition.
In its fifth year, the McGinnis Venture Competition attracts teams fromthe world's top MBA schools to compete for prizes that include cash and legalservices from Pittsburgh's top venture-minded community. The annual McGinnisVenture Competition is made possible by an endowment from Gerald E. McGinnis,a successful entrepreneur and founder of Respironics Inc.
Founded in 1949, the Tepper School of Business at Carnegie Mellon(http://www.tepper.cmu.edu) is a pioneer in the field of management scienceand analytical decision-making. The school's notable contributions to theintellectual community include six Nobel laureates and a consistent presencein the top tier of business school rankings. The Wall Street Journal recentlyranked the Tepper School as the fifth-best business school in the UnitedStates.
SOURCE Tepper School of Business at Carnegie Mellon
