JUNE 2008

The Latest News

2008 China Business Plan Competition: Go for the Gold!

Dingman Center for Entrepreneurship Delegation: October 26 - November 2, 2008

 

 
2007 China Business Plan Competition - Beijing, China        2007 Dingman Center Delegation - Tianjin, China

 

For more information about this year's competition and delegation, please click here.

 

Congratulations to G. "Anand" Anandalingam, newly appointed Dean of the Smith School! - We are thrilled to continue working with Dean Anandalingam.  For the press release on his appointment, please click here.

Congratulations to May's Pitch Dingman winners! - The last competition of the 2007-08 academic year featured 9 student businesses.  Fairwinds Fish Inn won the round, with a 3-way tie for second place, and another winner for the Audience Choice Award.
 
 

Also Inside This Issue...
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Pitch Dingman News

May 2008 Pitch Dingman Competition Winners

Fairwinds Fish Inn ($1,000 Award):

  • Judges awarded $1,000 to Nicholas Dawson, a freshman student for his business concept, Fairwinds Fish Inn.  Fairwinds Fish Inn will be the first fee fishing farm in all of Cecil County and the eighth in all of Maryland.  Fairwinds Fish Inn will be a fun, safe and economical environment for a reward fee fishing experience.  Nicholas is eager to get Fairwinds off the ground and plans to start working on his business concept during the summer break.

mailboxes@SiteSnap ($500 Award):
  • Judges awarded Andrew Duch, a sophomore for his business, mailboxes@SiteSnap. mailboxes@SiteSnap is a partnership between Andrew and Mailboxes Etc. and UPS Store franchises to offer website design services in these stores.  SiteSnap is the easy-to-use software that employees of these stores will use to generate websites instantly for customers.

FutureInvestmentBankers.com ($500 Award):

  • Judges also awarded $500 to Kunal Mahajan, a graduating senior for his business concept, FutureInvestmentBankers.com.  Kunal is a two-time winner of the Audience Choice Award. Third time is a charm.  Through persistence, Kunal, finally won a second place prize for FutureInvestmentBankers.com.  FutureInvestmentBankers.com will serve as a one-stop shop for investment banking interviews.  The website will encompass everything needed to get into the investment banking industry.

Terrapin Trailer ($500 Award):

  • Terrapin Trailer was also awarded $500.  Undergraduate students Wes Steschner and Ross Sacks pitched their business idea to open a cheap, late night food concession trailer targeting college students in the College Park nightlife scene.  Wes and Ross are confident that they can serve the needs of Maryland students by leveraging their knowledge of College Park nightlife and their experiences as students.

Cupid At Your Service ($250 Award):

  • The $250 Audience Choice Award went to Mitalee Mulpuru for her business idea, Cupid At Your Service
    (C.A.Y.S.).  C.A.Y.S. is a service that enables couples to plan special occasions saving time, effort and money.

*About Pitch Dingman
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Portfolio Company Updates

Getting Student Sherpas Up the Mountain

Most college seniors about to graduate take things a bit easy their last semester on campus; not the case for University of Maryland students Aaron Frank and Corey Laplante.  The friends and roommates decided to launch a business, consulting the Robert H. Smith School of Business’ Dingman Center for Entrepreneurship for guidance. Five months later, their startup storage business cleared $10,000 in revenues, more than tripling their goal.

The pair moves and stores student belongings for the summer months, eliminating the need for undergraduates to haul home their mini refrigerators, microwaves, dishes, books, and anything else they won’t need while away from campus.  Their company is called Student Sherpas, a nod to the Himalayan mountain guides who carry heavy equipment for climbers, and Frank and Laplante are the ones lugging the loads.

“Right now, we do all the heavy lifting,” said Laplante.  They arrange pick-up of student belongings, pack them into a rented truck, and store them in a nearby storage-unit facility.  To make it cost-effective, they consolidate several customers’ boxes into one unit.  When students move back to College Park for the fall semester, Student Sherpas will deliver the stowed goods.

“The Dingman Center has been a wonderful resource – the guiding voice the whole time,” Laplante said.  “Without them, we wouldn’t have gotten off the ground.”  The Center provided support developing a marketing strategy and the company’s revenue model, legal advice, and help working out the logistics of the business.  Dingman Center Managing Director Asher Epstein was the driving force, working closely with Laplante and Frank.  The Center also provided funding to cover startup and marketing costs.

“This is a remarkably impressive timeframe for a launch of a profitable business by two students,” Epstein said. “They came in with a great idea and we just helped them run with it. These guys offer great inspiration to other students – there are so many opportunities for viable businesses right on campus.”

Frank got the idea from a similar business at Washington University in St. Louis, run successfully by university students for the past 25 years.  Comparable services are cropping up at other universities and a national service called CollegeBoxes.com is expanding.  Frank thought the venture would be perfect for the University of Maryland, which before this spring, had no such service.  He and Laplante also felt combining a “green” component was important for their business – they are hoping to help consolidate carbon emissions by streamlining student move-in/move-out, and they are purchasing carbon offsets based on the business’s emissions to help with reforestation. They’ve also committed to donating 1 percent of profits to the socially responsible Patagonia 1% For the Planet fund.

When they first thought of starting a business, Laplante and Frank didn’t even know about the Dingman Center’s services for student entrepreneurs.  They were introduced to the Center when they attended a Dingman-hosted lunch session to hear the founder of My Organic Market speak.  At the lunch they found out about the Center’s weekly Pitch Dingman program, in which students can pitch their business ideas to experienced entrepreneurs for feedback and the chance to instantly win cash prizes. 

Frank and Laplante started attending the pitch sessions to hone their business plan.  Then they entered the Center’s monthly Pitch Dingman Competition and walked away with $1,250 in start-up funds.  They began meeting with Epstein and the Entrepreneurs-in-Residence at the Center regularly for business advice, and a few months later, were packing their first customers’ boxes into a U-Haul truck.

Though it hasn’t all been easy, Laplante admits.  He said there have been challenges to working as an outside company on a large university campus.  They are still trying to figure out the best ways to market the service to parents.  Also, there was the struggle to balance academic and entrepreneurial demands – like the afternoon both Laplante and Frank had a final exam that began five minutes after they finished a scheduled pickup.

“We loaded the boxes, slammed the truck door, and took off running across campus,” he said.

Luckily, both Laplante and Frank graduated, so they won’t have to deal with final exam conflicts in the future.  They plan to expand the business to minifridge rentals for the fall semester and will definitely continue the moving and storage services.  For now, they have a few months to rest before the heavy lifting begins again.

*About Portfolio Companies
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Capital Access Network Updates

Companies Experiencing Continued Success

XTS presented at MAVA's 2008 Capital Connection on May 28th.

CAN companies were highlighted at The George Washington University's VC/Angels Workshop on May 22nd: Goozex, Interaction Labs, Encore Path, Accustrata, Idalis Software, and MyBusinessAssistant.

Since the launch of their new website in February, Animal Attraction has seen a 28% increase in total members, 112% increase in page views, and 155% increase in monthly unique visitors.  Tune into "Fox and Friends" on June 10th at 8:50 a.m. for a live segment by Founder & President, Dan Cohen!

CAN Program Sponsors:

   

*About CAN
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Last Month at Dingman

HCIL Annual Symposium at the Smith School Co-Hosted by the Dingman Center

Where does human experience meet future technology?  Industry experts recently had a glimpse at the University of Maryland's Human-Computer Interaction Lab Annual Symposium, held May 29-30th at the Smith School.  Their attendees benefited from demonstrations and talks offering a preview of advanced computer user interfaces and design methodologies that highlight Human-Computer Interaction Lab (HCIL) research.

“In many ways the symposium offers an advance peek at technologies, and a world, yet taking shape, and yet to come," said Dr. Allison Druin, Director of the Human-Computer Interaction Lab and associate professor in the iSchool.  “Smith's Dingman Center for Entrepreneurship has been working with HCIL as part of the center's larger strategy to bring University of Maryland technologies to the commercial space.  The Center hosted the symposium at the Smith School in an effort to encourage greater cross-campus collaboration and pollination of ideas.”

“We brought the HCIL conference to the Smith School because, as computers become even more pervasive in everyday life, interface systems will become increasingly important as a means of interacting with technology across all aspects of business and life,” said Asher Epstein, Managing Director of the Dingman Center.  “Forward looking business people need to be aware of these trends and recognize how their business will be impacted.”


 Chesapeake Crescent Regional Innovation Summit

The Chesapeake Crescent Initiative held a Regional Innovation Summit "Regional Growth: Global Competitiveness" on June 3rd.  The Summit was attended by representatives from the private sector, investment institutions, government agencies, economic development authorities, and universities, including the University of Maryland: Melissa Carrier, Director of Venture Investments and Social Entrepreneurship at the Dingman Center; Adam Lehman, Dingman Center Entrepreneur-in-Residence; CAN Investors; MTECH; and the Office of Research. 

The attendees had the opportunity to listen to various leaders in innovation including Virginia Secretary of Technology Aneesh Chopra; David Rubenstein, the Carlyle Group; Mario Morino, the Morino Institute; and Steve Case, Revolution Health.  The attendees broke into groups and participated in roundtable discussions about improving connectivity and visibility of the existing regional innovation assets, growing the scale of regional talent and capital assets, and addressing institutional impediments to region-wide innovation structures.

For more information on the Chesapeake Crescent Initiative, please click here.
 
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DCE Partner Events

Apply Today for the VC Elevator Pitch Dinner!  Application Deadline: June 6th

The Entrepreneur Center @NVTC and TiE-DC invite entrepreneurs to apply for the opportunity to participate in the next VC Elevator Pitch Dinner to take place on July 15th.  At this exclusive event, 10 entrepreneurs will have the chance to test their elevator pitches in front of venture capitalists and established entrepreneurs to obtain frank feedback on their business ideas.

Criteria for eligibility to apply:
-Event is geared toward seed or early-stage companies
-Must be in the technology sector
-No institutional financing
-No more than $500,000 of angel financing
-No more than $500,000 in annual revenue
-Companies that participated in previous VC Pitch events may participate again

If you are interested in applying, please send a business plan (two-page maximum) to TEC@nvtc.org before June 6th at 5:00 p.m.

For more information, please click here.

Register for the June 11th Cleantech Investment Briefing Hosted by Morrison & Foerster

Investment in the Cleantech sector is moving fast.  Despite current economic challenges, Cleantech investing remains strong across quarterly fluctuations.  Join Morrison & Foerster LLP for a dynamic program including Cleantech company executives, investors, industry experts and legal practitioners - including the Corporate, Energy, Land Use and Intellectual Property/Patent practice groups.  Together these leaders in the field will address the opportunities for Cleantech investment, including: investment trends for 2008 and 2009; leveraging current and emerging regulations and incentives for maximizing return on investment; protecting intellectual property; and more.

Michael Molnar, Equity Analyst, Alternative Energy and Coal, Goldman Sachs
A. Michael Van Vleck, Founding Managing Director, GeoGlobal Energy LLC
Daron Coates, Principal, LiquidMaize, LLC and ThinkBox Group, LLC
Peter Hanschen, Senior Counsel (Energy), Morrison & Foerster
Bill Sloan, Of Counsel (Land Use and Environmental Law), Morrison & Foerster
Peter Davis, Partner (Intellectual Property), Morrison & Foerster
Thomas Knox, Partner (Corporate), Morrison & Foerster

For more information and to register, please click here.

NASA Composites and Materials Manufacturing Technologies are Available for Commercialization!

Announcing the NASA Technology Transfer Showcase on Friday, June 13, 2008 at The Inn and Conference Center, University of Maryland University College (Adelphi, MD).  Hosted by TEDCO and Tech Council of Maryland (TCM), along with a number of TCM member sponsors, including Johns Hopkins and Northrop Grumman, the Showcase will feature: presentations of available technologies, an overview of NASA contracting process and procedures, Technical Focus Panel Discussion with Q&A, networking with NASA scientific and technology transfer staff, exhibits, including an ASME booth and a “NASA Opportunities Booth” with online search capability to match needs to NASA’s technology portfolio, as well as a networking reception, sponsored by Goddard Alliance.  Registration is limited so register early!

For the detailed agenda, registration, and more, please click here.

Compete in the 2008 Global Security Challenge for a Chance to Win $500K

 

The Global Security Challenge Competition seeks to uncover the creative capabilities of innovators in universities and infant companies that apply to public security needs.  This includes software or hardware solutions that help (a) protect people, critical infrastructure, facilities and data/electronic systems against terrorist or other criminal attacks and natural disasters or (b) help governments, businesses and communities defend against, cope with or recover from such incidents.  Examples of their areas of interest are (but not limited to): biometrics, detection sensors, network security, data storage, video surveillance, RFID, data-mining SW, biotechnologies, and search software.

 

For more information on how to enter and the generous prizes, please click here.

 
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The Dingman Center for Entrepreneurship

Founded by Rudy Lamone in 1986, the Dingman Center was one of the first of its kind in the country and has emerged as a top-ranked entrepreneurship center. Thanks to initial funding with a generous grant from Michael D. Dingman, founder of the Signal Corporation (now part of Honeywell International), the Dingman Center continues to grow as a regional and national catalyst in the field of entrepreneurship. The Center is now aggressively evolving, and in some areas, is expanding its services to further its role as a leader in the student, regional, and academic entrepreneurial communities.

The Dingman Center is currently led by:

Asher Epstein, Managing Director
Melissa Carrier, Director of Venture Investments and Social Entrepreneurship and Acting Director,   Office of Career Management
Mr. John LaPides, Chairman of the Board and Entrepreneur-in-Residence

Please visit our Web site at http://www.rhsmith.umd.edu/dingman.

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