Dandy Dozen: accelerateOSU Business Plan Competition reveals 12 Finalists
Wednesday, January 24, 2018
Oklahoma State business students aren’t just learning about business; they’re planning and creating businesses.
And competing at business. Already.
That’s always apparent in the annual accelerateOSU Business Plan Competition, and the 2018 edition now heads toward next month’s finish with 12 finalists, determined by a judging panel of local professionals and entrepreneurs.
More than 50 OSU student teams wrote and submitted 10-page business plans for the competition, which was trimmed to the 12 finalists, split into two categories of six each: Main Street and High Tech. The finalists advance to the live Shark Tank-styled presentation set for Feb. 16 at Backstage in Stillwater, with top prizes ranging from $2,000-$8,000. The full finals event schedule will be released soon.
Each of the 12 finalists have already received $1,000 awards.
The accelerateOSU Competition is the premier business plan competition hosted by OSU’s Riata School for Entrepreneurship and the institute of New Venture Creation.
“I am really proud of all the student teams who entered the competition,” said Haley Marie Keith, coordinator of accelerateOSU. “I get to see firsthand the work these students put in to their entrepreneurial dreams. This competition allows them to show others, which is why I am so excited to host it here with OSU’s Department of Entrepreneurship.”
Main Street Finalists
Bubble Calm – The purpose of Bubble Calm is to provide an anxiety relieving gum that is fast-acting and easily accessible at a competitive price.
Infinite Prints, LLC – An apparel and accessory printing business aimed at providing quality printed apparel and accessories locally, online and through drop shipping services, while providing customers a streamlined ordering process, competitive pricing and the utmost flexibility in product customization.
Lizzie J, LLC – Lizzie J sells high-quality, fashionable pet apparel and matching accessories for the pet-owners online and at specialty boutiques and donates a portion of all profits to support young children in Haiti.
STEAK – STEAK (Safe Temperature Estimator at A Klick) is a service-providing company selling software and APP-based solutions to its customers. STEAK intends to save millions of dollars being spent for its cooking validation studies by providing low-cost technology solutions.
STEM Tech – A non-profit organization that addresses the lack of access to electricity and STEM education in Africa by providing renewable energy toolkits to children while teaching students STEM education principles.
Vertical – A venture fund that specializes in monetarily supporting Latino firms who have trouble accessing the sufficient capital at startup and growth stages allowing them to scale at a reasonable rate.
High Tech Finalists
EcoOxyHydroGen – EcOxyHydroGen is developing low-cost technology to make renewable hydrogen using sunlight and water. Unlike hydrocarbon fuels, such as oil, coal and natural gas, where carbon dioxide and other contaminants are released into the atmosphere, causing global warming, hydrogen fuel usage produces pure water as the only byproduct.
Indra – The focus here is on lightning strike protection, which is becoming increasingly important to the wind energy and aerospace industry due to the high cost of wind turbines and aircrafts. Indra Lightning Strike Mitigation is developing lightweight, conductive, flexible films to be sold to primary and secondary structure manufacturers in these industries.
Multivate – Creates multi-chamber, single-use bioreactors to help biopharmaceutical drug manufacturers reduce costs associated with purchasing and qualifying equipment, reducing factory footprint, simplifying the process, minimizing risk of microbial contamination, resulting in savings of millions of dollars per year.
Quantum Dots – For equine surgeons who face the problem of poor visualization of cancerous tissue while removing skin tumors, provides self-illuminating hybrid quantum dots that can effectively highlight tumor margins. The product provides stronger signals that can detect smaller cancer cells and conjugate with a wider variety of cancer drugs.
Safe Harbor Solutions – Safe Harbor Solutions (SHS) presents a wearable high-tech child safety wristband featuring heart-rate monitoring, temperature detection, impenetrable construction, and near-field GPS tracking to help parents combat tragedies such as drowning, heat stroke, SIDS, and abduction.
Whether - Whether is an informational technology company striving to economically optimize the trucking industry route planning. Whether incorporates near-term available weather data into flexible route dispatch design in order to mitigate head-wind drag, thereby lowering fuel costs by 5%.