UA Walton College Graduate Students Take Top Governor’s Cup Awards

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L. TO R.: Front row - Jason McNabb, Adi Masli, and Alin Dragos and Back — Mack McLarty, Carol Reeves, Michael Eskew and Charles Morgan

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. -- Since the business plan competition's inception in 2001, students in the Sam M. Walton College of Business at the University of Arkansas have taken some of the top prizes in the Donald W. Reynolds Governor’s Cup. 2006 was no exception.

At this year’s awards luncheon, held Wednesday, April 12, at the Statehouse Convention Center in Little Rock, Walton College students in the graduate program took the first-place $20,000, second-place $10,000 and third-place $5,000 awards. The second-place team also won the $5,000 graduate Acxiom Graduate Technology Award.

Walton College Dean Dan Worrell said: “One of our primary objectives is to help students learn how to put classroom learning into practice in the real world. We are very proud of the winners and the work they put into creating these exciting business plans.”

Carol Reeves, a Walton College associate professor of management and holder of the Cecil and Gwen Cupp Applied Professorship in Entrepreneurship, sponsored all three winning graduate teams.

The Governor’s Cup business plan competition, now in its sixth year, is designed to encourage students of Arkansas’ universities and colleges to act upon their ideas and talents to produce tomorrow’s businesses. A total of $104,000 was awarded in this year’s competition. Sixty-one student teams entered the competition in February. Six undergraduate and six graduate teams, along with four technology teams, were selected as finalists.

Walton College alumnus Thomas F. “Mack” McLarty III, president of Kissinger McLarty Associates of Washington, D.C., was the honorary event chairman. Michael L. Eskew, chairman and chief executive officer of UPS, Atlanta, Ga., delivered the keynote address and assisted McLarty in announcing the winners. Gov. Mike Huckabee and Virgil L. Miller Jr., senior vice president of Metropolitan National Bank and president of Arkansas Capital Corp., also congratulated the winners.

The winning team, Agrobotics, will produce innovative precision agriculture equipment, with the vision to increase crop yield while simplifying farming. Graduate students Alin Dragos, Adi Masli and Jason McNabb created the winning plan.

The second-place graduate team, Amiiga LLC, will be a software development and consulting company that will focus on enabling faster, easier access to information with the use of databases. Amiiga will provide a software package that will optimize data querying and improve efficiency. The team includes graduate students Tanya Fette, Leah Morton and Angelo Welihina. Amiiga also won the Acxiom Graduate Technology Award. The technology used by the team, called menu-based natural language interface, was developed by Craig Thompson, professor in the computer science and computer engineering department, UA College of Engineering. In addition, engineering senior Kyle Neumier assisted the team as its chief information officer.

The third-place team, Contür, will seek out specific categories with a void in creativity and introduce innovation. Contür’s first product, the Safe 'n’ Snug^TM Changing Station will transform the experience of diaper changing in a way that is comfortable for babies and easy for caregivers. Master’s degree students on this team include Sarah Garton, Paul McDaniel and Paul Sproles.

Reeves said, “We not only are very proud of these students and what they have done at the Governor’s Cup, but also of how much nationwide recognition they have received in some of the top business plan competitions in the country.”

The Amiiga team traveled to the University of San Francisco in March to participate in its international business plan competition. The Walton College team, which was one of 20 finalists in a pool of a 100 universities, won honorable mention and a $500 prize and tied with Stanford University. The team competed against such schools as University of Illinois, Duke University, University of Texas, Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, and the University of Michigan. The prestigious USF competition was judged by venture capitalists, angel investors, business consultants and leading entrepreneurs in Silicon Valley.

The Argobiotics team competed last week in the University of Nebraska “New Ventures World Competition” business plan competition and received $1,000 prize and honorable mention.

The Donald W. Reynolds Governor’s Cup is managed annually by Arkansas Economic Acceleration Foundation, an affiliate of the Arkansas Capital Corp., and funded by the Donald W. Reynolds Foundation. Undergraduate students from Harding University took the first place undergraduate prize and the technology award and second and third place went to students from John Brown University.

During the previous three years, Walton College graduate teams have swept the top honors at the competition.

Reeves added: “These business plan competitions do a lot to promote entrepreneurship here in Arkansas. This win will be so motivating to our incoming graduate classes. The Walton College is developing many programs to encourage more entrepreneurial thinking among our students.”