University of Arkansas Teams Finish in Top Three in Two Business Plan Competitions

Photo Submitted

FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. — The University of Arkansas continues to impress judges at graduate student business plan competitions.

From 2009 to 2013, the U of A has won 17 competitions and placed 19 finalists — more than any other school in the nation. Last year, Picasolar won more than $300,000 at competitions, including $250,000 for winning the prestigious MIT NSTAR Clean Energy Prize.

This year, the U of A is two for two in advancing to the finals in the competitions in which it competed.

LumaDrop finished third at the 16^th annual IBK Capital-Ivey Business Plan Competition, held Jan. 24-25 at the Richard Ivey School of Business at the University of Western Ontario. The four-person, interdisciplinary team has developed a plan to commercialize an eye drop for macular degeneration.

LumaDrop’s team includes:

• Neil Bora, a third-year student in the School of Law
• Randy Espinal Cabrera, a doctoral student in the department of chemistry and biochemistry in the J. William Fulbright College of Arts and Sciences
• Joe Huff, a master of business administration student in the Sam M. Walton College of Business
• Brad Phelan, an M.B.A. student in the Walton College

On Feb. 8, DataVis finished second at the 2014 Georgia Bowl Business Plan Competition at Kennesaw State University. The team is developing image-recognition software that simplifies and speeds up the inventory auditing process of retail store shelves.

Three students in the Walton College’s executive M.B.A. program constitute DataVis: Mike Finan, Jason Kohrig and Justin Urso.

“Both of these results were impressive,” said team mentor Carol Reeves, U of A’s associate vice provost for entrepreneurship. “Our interdisciplinary approach paid off with LumaDrop; the students made a very good showing. DataVis did a fantastic job, especially considering that it was the team’s first competition.”

DataVis will compete this weekend at 2014 Cardinal Challenge, the University of Louisville Business Plan Competition. At stake is more than $100,000 in business start-up cash and prizes, plus an automatic bid to the Global Venture Labs Investment Competition, scheduled for May 1-3 at the University of Texas at Austin.

Under the guidance of Reeves, the university has fielded competitive graduate student teams at state, regional, national, and international business plan competitions since 2002. During the past decade, students have won more than $2 million in cash at these competitions.