MAY 2008

The Latest News

2008 Cupid's Cup Business Competition and BB&T Business Invitational

Friday, April 11th ~ 12:00-5:00 p.m. ~ Van Munching Hall

 

  

BB&T Business Invitational, Pownall Atrium             Cupid's Cup Business Competition, Frank Auditorium

 

                                      

Cupid's Cup Business Competition Winner Jonathan Rust of Anaptyx with Kevin Plank, CEO of Under Armour

 

Other Winners:

BB&T Business Invitational Best Portfolio Company - Todd Wilson, Baby Fans

BB&T Business Invitational Best Student Business - Cherry Kwunyeun, Blumpari

Cupid's Cup Business Competition People's Choice Award - Kevin Kirk, A Slice of Paradise

Cupid's Cup Business Competition Second Place - Benjamin Solof & Steven Grella, Maverick Development

 

For the press release, please click here.
To watch the video, please click here.

Congratulations to April's Pitch Dingman winner - Remedium Technologies won the April Pitch Dingman Competition, as well as the Audience Choice Award!

Don't miss out on the opportunity to meet and connect at Capital Connection '08 - The region's premier event that brings together the country's most prominent investors with leading-edge technology companies has expanded its scope.  On May 27-28th, experience acceleration of momentum through every stage of growth.  For more information, please click here.

This year's Global Security Challenge is open for submissions now! - The purpose of this annual competition is to help young startups and ideas succeed in the security field.  Take advantage of this unique opportunity to get your ideas in front of investors, media, government, and industry leaders.  For more information, please click here.
 
 

Also Inside This Issue...
BACK TO TOP

Pitch Dingman News

April 2008 Pitch Dingman Competition Winner

Remedium Technologies ($2,750 Award):

 

Judges awarded $2500 to Don Wood, a Full-Time MBA student at the Robert H. Smith School of Business, for his business, Remedium Technologies.  Remedium Technologies is a company dedicated to the development of advanced hemostatic and tissue sealant materials.  Based on their proprietary technology, which implements the powerful natural phenomenon of self-assembly, Remedium Technologies offers a unique solution to effectively stop bleeding for an extremely wide range of injury types.  The $250 Audience Choice Award also went to Don Wood, who was the first Full-Time MBA student to win the Pitch Dingman Competition!

 

*About Pitch Dingman
BACK TO TOP

Portfolio Company Updates

North Star Games: Bethesda Board-Game Maker Enters Cyberspace

"Like most board games, the trivia title Wits & Wagers was designed to be played by a group of friends sitting around a coffee table.  This week, a new version of the game will let Xbox-owning players challenge one another around the world.

Bethesda's North Star Games is set to make its debut on Microsoft’s video game console, with a version of the company's flagship trivia title available as a $10 download from Microsoft's online service for the Xbox..."

To read the full article on Washington Post, please click here.

College Magazine: Partnership with Jacob Tyler Creative Group

"Les Kollegian, founder of Jacob Tyler Creative Group in San Diego, has partnered with entrepreneur and publisher Amanda Nachman to become Creative Director for the Washington D.C. based College Magazine. Unlike many campus related magazines of the past, College Magazine is not the brainchild of a marketing firm or a group of investors looking to tap into a market: College Magazine is a labor of love created, written, edited, and directed by students, for students..."

To read the full press release, please click here.

Goozex: Gaming the System

"Goozex sounds like something you might look for in the medicine cabinet when you're sick.  Actually, four ambitious University of Maryland grads made the name up to stand for "Goods Exchanged."  It's a company they created in 2006 to cut out the middleman in a $1 billion used video game market.  In less than two years, the startup has traded over 100,000 games, been rated the #1 video game trading site by Electronic Gaming Monthly, and became the largest video game trading platform on the Internet..."

To read the full article on Bisnow on Business, please click here.

CMART.com Has Launched!  Exclusive Discount for Smith: 10% Off

CMART.com is the premier closeout/liquidation store on the internet.  The web site is meticulously designed to be a clean and modern platform to highlight the high end, discounted merchandise offered for sale.  All inventory is available online in realtime with free shipping.  All merchandise has the ability to be thoroughly examined with a zoom feature, activated by rolling the cursor over the product image.  Also check out CMART.com's new blog feature which will preview upcoming deals and announce special sales events.

All Smith affiliates will receive 10% off their entire order on CMART.com by using the following promo code at checkout: SMI10

Netrino Launches Embedded Software Boot Camp: New Resource for Advancing Embedded Skills

Netrino LLC, global specialists in embedded systems design, announced the launch of their Embedded Software Boot Camp training program on Tuesday, April 15th at the Embedded Systems Conference in San Jose, California.  Netrino’s Embedded Software Boot Camp is a hands-on, one-week training course designed to develop and strengthen the embedded software programming expertise of individuals and teams.

Program creator and Netrino founder Michael Barr is an internationally recognized embedded systems expert, the author of two books and more than forty articles on embedded software design, and former editor-in-chief of Embedded Systems Design and adjunct faculty at the University of Maryland.  For over a decade, Mr. Barr has been a popular speaker at the Embedded Systems Conferences, at which he will lead one full-day tutorial and three shorter courses here this week.

Netrino’s Embedded Software Boot Camp consists of a concentrated series of lectures and hands-on exercises.  The carefully planned sequence is designed to quickly and dramatically raise embedded software programming skills and to promote the use of industry best practices.  The first two days focus on the development of device drivers using C for hardware interfacing.  The next two days center on real-time operating systems and the proper use of intertask communications primitives.  The fifth day of the program explores alternatives to preemptive operating systems, including the use of hierarchical state machines.  More detailed information is available online.

The Embedded Software Boot Camp training program is available now to interested engineering departments and teams.  The ratio of lecture to hands-on time can be adjusted, as can the total number of days.  This and other options, such as selection of the target operating system and processor family, allow for a significant amount of customization to fit the course to the skills and training needs of specific engineering audiences. 

A first public offering of the Embedded Software Boot Camp will be held June 9-13, 2008 at Netrino’s Maryland headquarters.  This program will be taught by Michael Barr and utilize IAR’s Embedded Workbench, J-Link, and VisualSTATE tools and target an STMicro ARM9 processor and Micrium’s µC/OS-II real-time operating system.  In addition to new knowledge and skills, each student will leave with a complete set of tools and the target board used in the hands-on exercises.  Registration is now open; please e-mail or call 866-78-EMBED.

*About Portfolio Companies
BACK TO TOP

Social Venture Highlights

Congratulations to Biodiesel University!

Tuesday, April 15th was an exciting day for Biodiesel University.  They procured a 2008 Ford F-450 pickup truck and tanked it up with 100% biodiesel made from algae.  This was very special stuff made from microalgae in the absence of light, or in other words, non-photosynthetic.  So special, in fact, that the truck was the first and only truck in the world running on it!

The day was even more exciting because Biodiesel University Executive Director and Dingman Center Entrepreneur-in-Residence Dan Goodman drove R. James Woolsey and Jonathan Wolfson to the 2008 Worldwide Energy Conference in the truck to demonstrate the fuel for the Department of Defense's energy brass.  Woolsey is the former Director of the CIA, former Under Secretary of the Navy, and an icon in the renewable energy and national security arenas.  Wolfson is the CEO of Solazyme, the company that has perfected this type of algal biodiesel.

Algal biodiesel holds tremendous promise for reducing greenhouse gases and improving national security by reducing our use of foreign oil, without consuming large tracts of land or displacing food crops.

The McNeal-Lehrer News Hour filmed the truck demonstration for airing sometime soon.  For Forbes' coverage of the event, please click here.  For a video clip about Solazyme biodiesel, please click here.

Biodiesel University enjoyed another exciting event in April when Dan was a keynote speaker at Jane Goodall's Global Youth Summit.  This week-long gathering brought together 100 outstanding youth leaders from 28 countries.  These college and high-school aged leaders and activists are working on wildlife conservation, environmental protection, poverty and water issues in their home countries, and came together to learn new skills and best practices for becoming even more effective change agents.  Dan's presentation on mindsets and practices for successful social entrepreneurs and another on the Biodiesel University program were well received by Dr. Goodall, her staff and the youth leaders.

Read more about these events on the Biodiesel University's blog.

MBA Students' Visit to InterConnection

At first sight you would think the market for gold, the training of hardware technicians and the capital of Uganda, have nothing in common; but a closer look at InterConnection's business model offers a revitalized view of corporate social responsibility and the way these three elements are bundled together to generate an innovative business model dedicated to a significant social need.   

Under the leadership of InterConnection’s general manager Mr. Charles Brennick, the Seattle-based firm has evolved into a self-sustainable non-profit organization with operations in numerous developing countries and one objective in mind: bringing technology and the Internet to underserved communities worldwide.  From preparing equipment shipments to Guatemala, Paraguay and Chile, to hosting a Uganda Government Official on a late Friday night, the firm dedication to this social cause was inspiring to the three Smith students that spent the day with Mr. Brennick.  The organization’s activities are based on something we like to call “green diversification”, leveraging the availability of outdated computer hardware, some with enough reusable features and accessories to provide a viable and cost-effective alternative to lower-income organizations and users. 

From the moment you step into InterConnection you experience its entrepreneurial spirit and socially responsible strategy.  Teams of volunteers are hard at work in each stage of the process, from sorting and disassembling those units which are scheduled to be recycled, to finding reusable peripherals and cleaning those which will be refurbished and given a fresh new look for reselling purposes.  Stacked CD-ROMS and hard drives are in queue, waiting to be reformatted.  The end product: palletized “plug and play” computers and monitors, boxed motherboards to be sold by the pound to local recycling facilities, and gold plated Pentium processors ready to be sold at a premium thanks to current high gold prices. 

After closing remarks, a few laughs, and dinner suggestions, students part for some Fish-N-Chips overlooking the Puget Sound and enjoying an unusually sunny and warm Seattle evening.  As they drive through town, they exchange their impressions from the visit and how both parties were able to gain invaluable new insights and develop mutual understanding of the nature of the project and its deliverables.  Excited about the weeks ahead, they return home amazed at how the experience turned peers into friends and a business trip into a remarkable learning experience and fond memory.

Social Venturing Program Sponsor:

*About Social Venturing
BACK TO TOP

CAN Updates

Successful Completion of Major Milestones

The three companies that presented at the CAN Breakfast on April 30th were: CauseTV, Honesty Online, and Interaction Labs.

  • CauseTV is an online video platform dedicated to emotional storytelling for causes with unique business-to-business model.
  • Honesty Online provides identity verification products to online markets such as Internet dating, social networking, online recruitment and e-commerce.
  • Interaction Labs develops computer interface technologies for immersive physical interactions with the digital world.

At the same breakfast, two companies presented updates on their progress: Animal Attraction and Encore Path.

  • Animal Attraction is an established and growing online community for pet owners.  The company has raised $1.36M in capital since its launch in February 2004.  The website currently has 69,000 registered members and receives one million views per month.
  • Encore Path develops and sells proprietary neural regenerative stroke rehabilitation devices to survivors.  The company has raised $415,000 in funding.

CAN Program Sponsors:

   

*About CAN
BACK TO TOP

Last Month at Dingman

Do you have to be an Innovator to be an Entrepreneur?

There is no denying that entrepreneurship is hot right now – the idea of running the show and working for one’s self holds great appeal for many people.  But do you have to have a completely inventive new approach to a problem to really make it big, or is there still room for tried and true solutions to meet market needs?

Asher Epstein, Managing Director of the Dingman Center, talks about the role of innovation in becoming a successful entrepreneur in the February 21st episode of Smith Business Close-Up.

Strategies for Surviving and Thriving in 2008: How to Keep Growing in a Slowing Economy

On Tuesday, April 8th, a seminar discussing strategies for dealing with, overcoming, and even growing in the face of an economic downturn, was co-hosted by the Dingman Center and TiE-DC.  The Podcasts from the seminar are as follows:

  • To listen to Congressman Albert Wynn (U.S. House of Representatives), Pamela Piper (Deputy Chief Administrative Officer for Government Internal Support Services, Prince George's County), and Asher Epstein (Managing Director, Dingman Center), please click here.
  • To listen to Melissa Carrier (Director of Venture Investments and Social Entrepreneurship, Dingman Center) and Todd Klein (Managing Partner, Legend Ventures LLC), please click here.
  • To listen to Andrew Sherman (Partner, Dickstein Shapiro LLP) and David Tayman (Partner, Dickstein Shapiro LLP), please click here.
  • To listen to Steve Thomas (Executive Director, TiE-DC), S. Tien Wong (CEO, Opus8), Mike Velotta (CEO, Lore.net), and Haresh Bhungalia (Executive Vice President of Consulting Services, 2020 Company), please click here.

2nd Annual Smith CEO Entrepreneurship Conference: e-Generation

The Dingman Center, in partnership with Smith CEO of the Robert H. Smith School of Business at the Universities at Shady Grove, hosted the 2nd annual entrepreneurship conference on Saturday, April 19th.  The event was a success, with over 100 students and entrepreneurs in attendance.  Melissa Carrier, Director of Venture Investments and Social Entrepreneurship, presented an overview of the Center and introduced the 2008 Cupid's Cup winner, Jonathan Rust of Anaptyx.  To listen to the Podcast, please click here.

A Pitch Dingman session was held as one of four panels during the conference.  With more than 20 people in attendance, seven students presented their businesses for a chance to win $500.  Some of the businesses included a boys’ accessories company called Tara Designs, a solar energy consulting firm, and a med spa.  Melissa Carrier evaluated the businesses and provided feedback to all of the participants.  Ultimately, Diverse’T’ took home the prize with their t-shirts which promote “unity in diversity” with the “international Terp.”  Deepa Vinodhan, along with her business partners, are graduate students at the university.   They saw a need to reach out to international students and their idea was born.  Their t-shirts are adorned with the Terp in international clothing, ranging from Indian to Chinese to American.

A panel entitled "Making Green, Being Green", moderated by Dan Goodman (newly appointed Smith Senior Fellow for Renewable Energy) and populated by green entrepreneurs and investors explored the trends and opportunities in green entrepreneurship.

Project Better Place Presentation by Michael Granoff

On Wednesday, April 23rd, Michael Granoff spoke to a small group of university students, faculty and staff about Project Better Place and his mission to reduce the world’s dependency on oil.  Granoff is banking on history repeating itself – just as electric light replaced kerosene oil lamps more than a century ago, he’s convinced electricity will replace oil to power vehicles.  Granoff joined with Israeli businessman Shai Agassi – who was in line for the top position at software giant SAP - to raise $200 million in venture investment to launch Project Better Place in 2007.  In January 2008, the startup announced a partnership with Renault-Nissan and the State of Israel to develop an electric recharge grid network infrastructure for cars.  In March, the company signed a deal to introduce its environmentally friendly electric car system in Denmark.

“It’s not rocket science,” Granoff said.  “We’re not inventing anything, just taking technology and components that already exist and putting them together.”  The model now has Renault-Nissan fitting a five-passenger sedan with a battery and plug-in capabilities.  Users will pay a monthly premium to utilize the company’s recharging networks and batteries based on how many miles they drive.  To recharge, they’ll plug cars in at night, or for longer trips, swap out for fully charged battery packs at exchange stations.

*Carrie Handwerker, Office of Marketing Communications

Dingman Center for Entrepreneurship Research Awards and Luncheon

Kislaya Prasad, Research Professor in Decision and Information Technologies, discussed relative wealth concerns and entrepreneurship:
          The notion that people are motivated by a desire for rank and social status has a long history in economics.  Despite this, the idea has remained somewhat peripheral to the main concerns of economists.  In this paper, we develop a model of occupational choice and entrepreneurship in which a concern with rank in the relative wealth distribution plays a central role.  Relative wealth concerns are shown to lead to an increase in entrepreneurship and risk-taking.  When entrepreneurial risk is not diversifiable there is less entrepreneurship than is desirable.  Relative wealth concerns are shown to mitigate this difficulty. We use the model to study the effects of policy uncertainty, especially uncertainty about the success of market-based economic reforms, on entrepreneurship.  In recent years countries such as China and India have undergone reforms whose success relies, to a considerable extent, on investments made by entrepreneurs.  Our study provides a framework for better understanding the effects of policy on entrepreneurship.

Sheetal Singh, Doctoral Candidate in Management and Organization, discussed entrepreneurs’ "practical" intelligence:
          It is “know how”, a core ability that plays a key role during the exploitation stage of entrepreneurship as day to day challenges emerge in the form of product and market barriers and surprises.  Practical intelligence is an experience based accumulation of skills, dispositions, tacit knowledge, and the ability to apply the same to solve every day problems; it is also referred to as common sense.  Practical intelligence enables problem solving with ready knowledge.  In this study we study how entrepreneur’s experience translates into practical intelligence and the impact of practical intelligence on new venture growth.  We identify the role of entrepreneur’s specific learning orientations that enhance the relationship between experience and practical intelligence.

Congratulations to all of the award winners:
Ph.D. Student Research in Progress - Mingfeng Lin and Siva Viswanathan, Borrowing from Strangers: An Empirical Investigation of Online Peer-to-Peer Financial Lending for Entrepreneurs
Ph.D. Student Working Paper - Sheetal Singh, Practical Intelligence of High Potential Entrepreneurs: Antecedents and Links to New Venture Growth
Faculty/Student Journal Acceptance - Benjamin L. Hallen, The Causes and Consequences of the Initial Network Positions of New Organizations: From Whom do Entrepreneurs Receive Investments

Welcome: 2008-09 Technology Transfer Graduate Assistants

Ben Hatten is currently a first-year MBA student at the Robert H. Smith School of Business.  Prior to returning to business school, Ben worked at HRJ Capital, an alternative investment firm based out of Woodside, California.  HRJ Capital is a fund of funds focusing on Private Equity, Venture, and Hedge funds.  He also spent over three years working at Gap Inc.'s San Francisco headquarters working within their Outlet division.  At Gap Inc., Ben was in charge of the financial performance of a $250M division.  Ben earned his B.A. in Economics at the University of Notre Dame and grew up here in the Washington D.C. area.

Annika Shogren is currently a first-year MBA student concentrating in Finance.  Prior to matriculating at the Robert H. Smith School of Business, she worked as a technology transfer specialist.  She has also worked as an analyst at the Department of Defense and as a teacher through Teach For America.
 
BACK TO TOP

DCE Partner Events

Capital Connection 2008: Where Innovation Meets Smart Money

 

This year, in addition to the start-up, early-stage and expansion-stage companies traditionally showcased at the annual venture fair, Capital Connection will also feature later-stage private growth companies for the first time.

Developed by venture capitalists for the venture community, Capital Connection's proven format provides multiple venues for venture capitalists, service providers, and other investors to interact with entrepreneurs and discover the region’s premier emerging companies.  More than 50 companies from various stage and technology sectors, hundreds of investors and important strategic partners are expected to participate, all under one roof.

 

To register to attend, submit a profile/application, or sponsor the event, please visit the website.

  • Date: May 27-28th

  • Location: Baltimore Marriott Waterfront Hotel

  • Web site

Come Celebrate HCIL's 25th Anniversary

 

Come celebrate the Human-Computer Interaction Lab's 25th anniversary by joining us for a very special Symposium on May 29, 2008.  Not only will you hear talks about cutting-edge research being conducted at the HCIL, but this year we will begin the Symposium with a very special keynote panel, "25 Years of HCI, 25 Years of HCIL."  Esteemed colleagues from outside of the HCIL will offer their reflections.

 

In addition, this year we will continue the tradition of demos and posters following the talks, but these will happen as a part of lab tours where you will be able to see our new facilities.  The following day, May 30, 2008 there will be a wide variety of tutorials and workshops that can't be missed. Be sure to sign up early, since space is limited.  Additional anniversary activities are also planned for alumni and special guests discussing the 25th history of HCIL.

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 visit the website.

  • Submission Deadline: June 15th

  • Date: September 15th (U.S. Finals); November (International Finals)

  • Location: Jeong H. Kim Engineering Building at the University of Maryland-College Park (U.S. Finals); London, England (International Finals)

  • Web site
BACK TO TOP

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.

*Past Newsletters

To subscribe to this newsletter, please send an email to dingman@rhsmith.umd.edu with "subscribe" in the subject line; to unsubscribe to this newsletter, please send an email to dingman@rhsmith.umd.edu with "unsubscribe" in the subject line.