February 6, 2003
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A WINNING VENTURE: Five UW students won the western division of the National Venture Capital Investment Competition held recently in Colorado.
The UW Business School’s Center for Technology Entrepreneurship (CTE) sponsored the team of four master’s of business administrations students: Andy Baldridge, Shaun Westfall, Uday Keshavdas and Balu Chenicheri; and Joy Ghosh, a fourth-year UW Medical School and CTE student.
The $5,000 first prize will be used to finance the team’s trip to the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, in April to participate in the national finals. The UW also won the “entrepreneur’s choice” award (and an extra $1,000) which was given to the team the judges said they would most like to work with. It was the first time in the seven-year history of the competition that a team has won both first prize and the entrepreneur’s choice award.
The competition required student teams to assume the role of venture capital firms. Each school was given a hypothetical $60-million fund to invest in and had 48 hours to evaluate five bona fide business plans and then decide where to invest their money. They then had to defend their decisions to a judging panel of venture capitalists.
Emer Dooley, faculty adviser to the UW team and lecturer in the school’s management and organization department, said the students’ participation in an extensive weekly coaching program led by Seattle-area venture capitalists and entrepreneurs clearly helped secure the win.
The UW team competed against University of Southern California; University of California, Los Angeles; University of California, Berkeley; San Diego State University; University of Michigan; and University of Texas, Austin.
TECHNICAL TRIUMPH: Two UW teams won merit awards at the recent online communication competition sponsored by the Society for Technical Communication, Puget Sound Chapter. OnTech News won in the “books” category for Kay Pilcher and Jaime Prosser, while Get Your UW NetID won in the user support tools category for Carol Robinson, Jim Montgomery and Ken Lowe.
KUDOS: Members of the Washington Community Forestry Council recently elected Kathy Wolf, research assistant professor of forestry, as its chair. The council provides policy recommendations to the Washington Department of Natural Resources and Commissioner of public lands regarding urban forestry. Members include representatives of state agencies, public utilities, NGOs, local government and green industry. Information about the council can be found at http://www.dnr. wa.gov/wcfc.
Do you know someone who deserves kudos for an outstanding achievement, award, appointment or book publication? If so, send that person’s name, title and achievement to uweek@u.washington.edu.
