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Seventeen titles available! Understand how the leading programs compare and learn more about the MBA experience in and beyond the classroom through Clear Admit School Guides. As featured in the Economist.

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Be as prepared as possible for your MBA interviews this season with the Clear Admit Interview Guides! School-specific sample questions and in-depth strategy, campus visit details and places to stay.

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Monday, May 12, 2008

NYU Stern Awards $150K to Winning Entrepreneurs in Annual Business Plan Competition

The New York University (NYU) Stern School of Business last week announced the winners of its 9th Annual Business Plan Competition. Top honors – and more than $150,000 in seed money and in-kind support – went to plans in each the traditional and social enterprise tracks focused on leveraging social networking sites to create new products and providing an innovative model for combating poverty and limited healthcare access respectively.

The founders of Socialbomb Inc., Stern alumnus Mihir Dange (BS ‘01) and Michael Dory, Adam Simon and Scott Varland of Tisch’s Interactive Telecommunications Program, won first place in this year’s traditional track. Their plan provides entertainment services (and related advertising opportunities) built upon existing social networking sites such as Facebook and MySpace. Basically, Socialbomb serves up clever games that users can play on mobile devices in which they are rewarded or penalized for everyday life events such as how they dress, whether or not they remember friends’ birthdays and more.

Socialbomb’s founders were awarded the Ira Rennert Entrepreneurial Prize of $50,000, which will help them turn their business plan into reality. But as important as the prize money was the coaching and guidance the team received over the course of the eight-month business plan competition, say its members.

“Socialbomb entered the competition having completed some R&D and with a vague notion of how it might be turned into a business, and we left with a strategic plan of action,” said team member Adam Simon. “Guidance from advisors and the Berkley Center staff played a huge part in shaping our young company’s development,” he continued. “The market research and financial planning we completed throughout the year helped shape how we think about our products and the market, allowing us to emerge from the competition ready to open our doors.”

Focusing on the Double Bottom Line of Profitability and Social Impact
Two winning teams, meanwhile, shared top honors in the social entrepreneurship track for their business plans focused on creating positive social impact while still turning a profit. Splitting the $100,000 Stewart Satter Family Prize were Naya Jeevan for Kids (NJFK), which was awarded $75,000 for its innovative plan to provide quality healthcare access to social disadvantaged families in developing countries, and Madécasse, which won $25,000 to further develop its plan to support local production and manufacturing of fair trade products in Madagascar for export to the United States.

The NJFK team, led by Asher Hasan MD (MBA ‘07), Saad Tabani (MBA ‘08), Farhan Musharrif and Irum Musharraf, has focused its initial efforts in India and Pakistan, where it will act as a catalytic intermediary between insurance companies and corporations to give naya jeevan, or “new life” as it translates from Urdu and Hindi, to two underserved communities in South Asia. The two communities it will target are low-income corporate employees and their children, as well as domestic staff members of corporate employees and their children.

“One of the most valuable experiences the NJFK team gained from its participation in the business plan competition was having unprecedented exposure to venture capitalists and social entrepreneurs,” said NJFK team member Hasan. Getting to repeatedly pressure-test business concepts and receive continuous feedback was also a major benefit, he added.

The other winning team in the Social Entrepreneurship track, Madécasse, won with its plan to help bridge the gap between poverty and potential in emerging markets using Equitrade. Equitrade, similar to the Fair Trade concept, requires both the farming and the manufacturing of products to be completed within the country of origin using ethical and sustainable methods.

“Before the competition, our business plan for Madécasse was relatively small in scale,” said Madécasse co-founder Tim McCollum. “This process opened our eyes to how much more we could potentially do with the business, and transformed our vision from that of a small business to an industry leading company that can achieve $10+ million in revenue per year,” he continued. Other team members include recent Stern graduate Brian McCollum (MBA ’07) and Brett Beach.

Stern’s Business Plan Competition, sponsored by the Berkley Center for Entrepreneurial Studies, is open to the greater NYU community. It drew 155 teams this year, up 20 percent over last year. In addition to valuable seed money and continual guidance throughout the competition itself, the winning teams will have a virtual “pod” in the Stern Incubator, where they will benefit from $10,000 in pro-bono legal and consulting support, an extensive mentor network, ongoing technical assistance, educational programs and other university resources.

DISCUSSIONS / BLOGS / WIKI

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School-Hosted Blogs

Straight from the source: aggregated posts from students and administration. Below are the seven most recent posts in school-hosted blogs.

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• Top 10 Applicants:
• July Dream
• Miss Curly Bee
• VidiViciVeni
• B-School Bound
• Tinydancer
• gltnforpnshmnt
• mbabound08
• Achilles
• Eight Schools
• MBA Runner Girl

• Top 10 Students:
• m@ (Ross)
• MaybeMBA (Chicago)
• Hair Twirler (Georgetown)
• Iday (Chicago)
• J-term Johnny (Columbia)
• La Laudiaria (Wharton)
• MBA Gladiator (Yale)
• Angel Angie (LBS)
• Necromonger (INSEAD)
• Chrisof Meyer (Darden)

• Top 10 Applicants:
• Rungee582
• Iday
• Juggler
• Asiangal
• Forrest Gump
• RusGirl
• Hair Twirler
• JatWarrior
• MBA Babe
• Anand

• Top 10 Students:
• Angel Angie (LBS)
• The Divine Miss N (LBS)
• From Cali (Ross)
• Tim K. (McCombs)
• Noelle (IESE)
• Jerry Blank (Yale)
• Benny (Tuck)
• La Laudiaria (Wharton)
• Karlitos (LBS)
• MBA Gladiator (Yale)

• Top 10 Applicants:
• MBA Jackass
• Marina
• Forrest Gump
• Pupstar78
• Axechick
• Sorebrek
• Angel Angie
• I_Will_Make_It
• Redwolf056
• Vatsa

• Top 10 Students:
• Marquis (Stanford)
• Poweryogi (Chicago)
• KV (LBS)
• FutureMBAGirl (Wharton)
• The Divine Miss N (LBS)
• Vijay (ISB)
• Wakechick (Chicago)
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• Jerry Blank (Yale)
• Olivier (INSEAD)

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