A day-long competition with 43 teams of
students being judged by 23 business people and entrepreneurs led to a $10,000
prize for Tixora, an online booking service for intercity motorcoach buses.
The
2015 G. Steven Burrill Business Plan Competition, held May 1 at the Wisconsin
School of Business at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, saw three other
teams win top recognition from judges as well as several other awards.
In
addition to Tixora, the judges made the following awards to the top winners in
their respective competition tracks:
·
$7,000
prize to ITR Medical, a novel resectoscope designed to reduce bladder cancer
recurrence rates;
·
$4,00
prize toLifeMap, which documents a person’s life by pinning stories, photos,
and music by where and when they happened in online maps; and
·
$1,000
prize to Entolution, an industrial-scale cricket mill providing food-grade
cricket meal to edible insect food manufacturers.
PerkinsCoie,
LLP provided prizes of $7,000 for ITR Medical, $2,500 for Tixora, and $1,500
for LifeMap.
The
Breathe for Change team won the $3,000 Wisconsin Center for Education Products
& Services (WCEPS) prize with a business idea to offer programs focused on
the well-being and health of teachers, students, and communities.
The
following business ideas were recognized as runners-up, with each team being
awarded $250:
- Serving
Earth LLC—Reusable
food-to-go boxes made of post-consumer recycled materials. - VitaCycle—An affordable and
modular method to produce, transport, and consume microgreens - Boxable—Develops and delivers
EPS foam recycling programs for universities, biotechnology companies, and
related firms - Speakamos—Website and smartphone
application for intermediate to advanced language learners
In
past years, the competition has not only fostered innovation through
entrepreneurial competition, but led to the establishment of successful
businesses such as Chefs for Seniors, EatStreet,
and Greenverse.
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