April 14, 2011

Marquette announces winners of 2011 Business Plan Competition

Web-based staff scheduling tool ZoomShift takes top prize

MILWAUKEE – Marquette University announced the winners of its 2011 Business Plan Competition at a banquet April 13 featuring keynote speaker Chuck Templeton, founder of OpenTable.com. The Best Overall Plan was awarded to ZoomShift, a web-based staff scheduling tool created by Benjamin Bartling, a senior in the College of Business Administration.

In its ninth year, the Business Plan Competition attracted 52 entrants, the most in the contest’s history. Of those, 20 were social ventures. The competition last year added a separate category for businesses with a focus on addressing a societal need.

The Best Social Plan award went to The Ability Center, a fitness, athletic and recreation facility specifically designed for individuals with disabilities and their special needs, yet inclusive of the able-bodied public.

“The growth of and energy around the Business Plan Competition this year, particularly in the social venture category, is indicative of a growing focus on entrepreneurship campuswide,” said Tim Keane, director of Marquette’s Kohler Center for Entrepreneurship, which sponsors the contest. “We saw an impressive and diverse array of start-ups – I think many will go on to be successful enterprises.”

Following are all the 2011 winners:

Best Overall Plan – ZoomShift
Class: Undergraduate
Team Lead: Benjamin Bartling

Best Social Plan – The Ability Center
Class: Alumni
Team Lead: Damian Buchman

Best Undergraduate Plan – EasyG™
Provides competitive products at an affordable price that make it easier and safer for medical professionals to practice and administer medicine. The first product introduced by EasyG™ will be a wireless ECG monitoring device.
Class: Undergraduate
Team lead: Thomas Berdelle

Best Undergraduate Plan – SayClip
A web-based platform that allows people to communicate on a worldwide scale, for free.
Class: Undergraduate
Team Lead: Nick Rinaldi

Social Plan Runner-up – Brick by Brick
A nonprofit business that focuses on providing retail career training to professionals who are on the Autism spectrum.
Class: Faculty
Team lead: Carole Burns

Overall Runner-up – Medtric eHealth Solutions
Medtric has developed the PillScheduler, an app for Android and Apple operating systems that allows patients and their doctor or pharmacist to program treatment or drug regimens.
Class: Alumni
Team Lead: Greg Gulick

Overall Runner-up – onListed.com
onListed.com is a demand-driven service marketplace for contracting personal, residential and commercial services in the U.S. It is a practical hybrid platform combining Craigslist’s open messaging, eBay’s reverse auction and Facebook’s searchable profiles.
Class: Alumni
Team Lead: Tomasz Jasinski

About the Business Plan Competition
Participants receive individual feedback throughout the competition from seasoned entrepreneurs and investors. They also hear from previous participants and are able to share information with each other through networking workshops on business model development, plan refinement and presentation skills, which are held periodically throughout the competition.
 
Fully-developed plans are reviewed by a panel of judges who select semi-finalists to participate in oral presentations. The winners receive services, such as legal, accounting and public relations assistance. Winners also will be invited to participate in the Governor’s Business Plan Competition.