Student Entrepreneur Teams Shouter and MosquitoTech Win UK Venture Challenge

LEXINGTON, Ky. (March 11, 2014) — The undergraduate team Shouter and graduate team MosquitoTech were the winners of the third annual University of Kentucky Venture Challenge student entrepreneur competition. Each team won $1,000 in scholarship prize money and will represent UK at the state competition, Idea State U, April 11-12 at the Lexington Convention Center.

Shouter is a mobile application for connecting users to the people and events around them. Team members are computer science seniors Josiah Hanna, Charlie Effinger and Craig Schmidt. Their application will allow information to be shared in a localized area through a dynamic network of users while maintaining user privacy and security. The students, who entered Venture Challenge in the business concept category, will now prepare a business plan with detailed financials for the state competition.

The graduate team MosquitoTech is Alex Blasingame, Justin Johnson and Rob Arnold, all MBA candidates in the Gatton College of Business and Economics. The students were paired with UK researcher and medical and veterinary entomology Professor Stephen Dobson, who has patented a technology to control the Asian tiger mosquito. The students put together a business plan for an environmentally responsible product to control and eliminate this pest, currently in 26 states.

Daniel White, a mechanical engineering junior, won second place undergraduate and $500 for his Dream Fit personal training company that provides one-on-one customized fitness training for customers during live Skype sessions.

The second place graduate team of MBA candidates Miguel Doughlin and Erica Clark, and Satrio Husodo, a molecular and cellular biochemistry Ph.D. candidate, will share $500 for Arymza Technologies. Their business plan targets the $15 billion starch market using new enzyme technology developed by UK molecular and cellular biochemistry researchers Matthew Gentry and Craig Vander Kooi that makes it easier to process starch.

Both of the second place teams will also represent UK at Idea State U, a program of the Kentucky Cabinet for Economic Development.

The online top vote winner with 6,325 votes was the team of Richard Graff, computer science sophomore and Ethan Palmer, electrical engineering sophomore, for Easy Conference. Their mobile application concept will make the process of planning and executing meetings and events easier, more efficient and more effective.

Additional undergraduate students who participated in the 2014 UK Venture Challenge included: Bryan Wright, architecture junior; Charlie Miles, electrical engineering senior; Chris Lee, marketing and management senior; and Alexandra Hart, agricultural economics senior.

Graduate students included: pharmaceutical sciences, CET, Ph.D. candidates Huy Ngo, Rene Gonzalez, and Jarrod Williams; Matt McErlean, pharmaceutical sciences, drug discovery, Ph.D. candidate; and MBA candidates Amber Mills, Vladimir Goussev, and Stephen Stone.

The UK Venture Challenge competition and monthly workshops leading up to Venture Challenge are organized by iNET Director Deb Weis with Dean Harvey, executive director of the Von Allmen Center for Entrepreneurship. The Innovation Network for Entrepreneurial Thinking, also known as iNET, is hosted by the College of Communication and Information; the Von Allmen Center for Entrepreneurship / Lexington Innovation and Commercialization Center is part of the Gatton College of Business and Economics. Chris Lee is president of the Big Blue Starters student entrepreneur organization.

Other members of the Venture Challenge team included: iNET Entrepreneur in Residence Brian Raney; Nick Such, Adam Chaffins, Theresa Simcic, Garrett Ebel, and David Booth from Awesome Inc; Scott Johnson and Amy Triana of the Department of Communication Office of Research and Instructional Technology; Mariam Gorjian, Von Allmen Center; Heather Burke, photographer and School of Library and Information Science student affairs officer; and College of Information and Communication Chief of Staff Janice Birdwhistell.