I judged the Global Moot Corp competition again this year. Run by Rob Adams it is the Superbowl of business plan competitions since the entrants have won a competition elsewhere. This year 38 teams competed with just under half coming from international. The competing teams’ plans ranged from social software to medical devices to clean tech and more. The winners this year were:
Third Runner-up: OvaGuard from Thammasat University, Thailand, cultivates market dominating Phalaenopsis, growing highly demanded orchids.
Second Runner-up: qcue from the University of Texas at Austin provides a white label software application that transforms existing box offices into efficient markets.
First Runner-up: Klymit from Brigham Young University uses noble gas enabled fabric to control the temperature of the clothing.
2008 Global Moot Corp Champion: NeuroBank from Carnegie Mellon University. The company developed a breakthrough proprietary technology for minimally invasive extraction, isolation, expansion and cryopreservation of adult neural stem cells.
The full list of participants can be found here. It’s interesting to see how the local culture impacts the business focus of the presenting teams. The Thailand team always focuses on family-style businesses. Last year the Thai competitor focused on prawns while this year they focused on orchids. Universities with strong medical centers focus on therapeutics and medical devices. The Brigham Young team this year focused on climate-controlled clothing. The quality of the plans continues to climb and the number of teams actually starting the proposed business continues to increase as well.
Best regards,
Hall T.
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