HomeDx Wins Graduate Division at Global New Venture Competition

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HomeDx team members (left to right) Will Swearingen, Audra Mazzeo, Daniel Cherry, Calvin Smith and Max Mahler

A team from the University of Arkansas that is working to develop the first over-the-counter influenza test that will be distributed through large retail channels took first place in the graduate division at the Global New Venture Competition on March 13 at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.

HomeDx received a cash award of $7,000 and automatic entry into the 2013 Global Venture Labs Investment Competition at the University of Texas at Austin in May, which bills itself as the “Super Bowl of business competitions.”

HomeDx is comprised of master of business administration students Max Mahler, Audra Mazzeo, Calvin Smith and Will Swearingen; and master of accounting student Daniel Cherry. It is one of four business plan competition teams that formed in the current New Venture Development graduate course taught by Carol Reeves, associate vice provost for entrepreneurship and holder of the Cecil and Gwendolyn Cupp Applied Professorship in Entrepreneurship in the Sam M. Walton College of Business.

All four teams — which include EverClean Coating Solutions, Picasolar and ParadigMed — will be among the six finalists competing in the graduate division at the 13^th annual Donald W. Reynolds Governor’s Cup Collegiate Business Plan Competition, to be held April 4-5 at The Chancellor Hotel in Fayetteville.

EverClean Coating Solutions won the Walmart Better Living Business Plan Challenge regional competition on March 8. The regional winners advanced to the final rounds, scheduled for April 18-19 at the company’s home office in Bentonville. The winning team will receive a cash prize of $20,000. A team from the U of A, Ground Up Biosolutions, won the contest in 2009.