HARVARD BUSINESS SCHOOL CELEBRATES TENTH ANNIVERSARY OF BUSINESS PLAN CONTEST
Winners Look to Opportunities in China
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| Tingting Zhong (HBS '06) Photo: Andreas Sylverius (HBS '07) |
BOSTON - Harvard Business School conducted the finals of its tenth annual Business Plan Contest today, and the winners, who shared awards totaling $50,000, had their sights set clearly on China.
Second-year MBA student Tingting Zhong won first place in the “traditional track” for her plan for a company called 8Baorice (pronounced bow-bow-rice) that aims to create an online community focusing on topics such as fashion and beauty for 45 million Chinese women. Professor Nabil El-Hage served as Zhong’s faculty advisor.
The winner in the concept -- or early development -- phase of the social enterprise track was Yashmere, “a sustainable and socially responsible venture” that would bring revenue to one of China’s poorest regions by exporting yashmere yarn -- made from the fur of yaks and comparable to cashmere – to the U.S. market. The idea was developed by a team that included Jose Dias de Barros and Shawn Tan, both members of the MBA Class of 2006. Professors emeriti Ray Goldberg and Walter Salmon were faculty advisors.
Coming out on top in the social enterprise track’s pilot phase (which recognizes startups that have already begun operations or raised or made money) was Mountains for Miracles, a venture that is leveraging the founders’ world-class mountain-climbing skills to launch a $5 million fundraising campaign for the Jimmy Fund, which supports research in pediatric cancer at Boston’s Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. Their initial expedition will attempt to set a record by climbing the tallest mountain on each continent in just 185 days. The faculty advisor for this project was Gordon Bloom, a lecturer at the Hauser Center for Nonprofit Organizations at the Kennedy School of Government.
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| SE Track (Concept Phase) Winning Team - Yashmere. (L-R): Jose Dias de Barros (HBS '06), Senior Lecturer Michael Chu, Marie So, Carol Chyau, Esther Hsu,Shawn Tan (HBS '06) Photo: Andreas Sylverius (HBS '07) |
Runners-up in the traditional track, which is limited to for-profit enterprises, were Acillix, a startup that has already patented a process for demineralizing water; Elective Medical Lending, which is introducing a new method of financing to people opting for elective medical and dental procedures; Hepa Wash, which will deliver affordable support therapy to patients with chronic or acute liver failure; and Open Network Television (ONTV), founded in 2005 to provide a marketplace for digital content providers like podcasters and filmmakers.
The second-place finisher in the social enterprise track, which includes nonprofit or for-profit business plans for enterprises with an explicitly social agenda, was SoukTel, whose mission is to reduce unemployment among Palestinian youth and help small businesses in the West Bank by establishing a cell-phone based job matching service that utilizes partnerships with local universities and cell phone service providers.
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| Mountains for Miracles (L-R): John Serafini (HBS/Kennedy School of Government '07), Jamie Ponce (HBS/KSG '08), Ben Renda, Andrew Murphy (HBS/KSG '07), Senior Lecturer Michael Chu Photo: Andreas Sylverius (HBS '07) |
Five thousand dollars in cash and an equal amount in services went to each of the runner-up teams. Runners-up in the traditional track also came away with Satchu-Burgstone Entrepreneurship Awards, endowed by Jon Burgstone (MBA ’99), Asif Satchu (MBA ’99), and Reza Satchu (MBA ’96), all runners-up in the 1999 Contest with their plan for SupplierMarket.com, which later became a great commercial success.
The social enterprise winners and runner-up were recipients of the Peter M. Sacerdote Prize. A member of the MBA Class of 1964 and a former Goldman Sachs partner, Sacerdote established the award on the occasion of his 40th Reunion to encourage more graduates of the School to develop and launch their own social-purpose ventures.
Organized by the HBS Rock Center for Entrepreneurship, the HBS Social Enterprise Initiative, and HBS students in the Entrepreneurship Club and Social Enterprise Club, the Business Plan Contest provides an integrative learning experience for participants, drawing on all facets of the Harvard MBA curriculum. It is one of several special programs funded by the Rock Center, which was created through the generosity of pioneering venture capitalist Arthur Rock (MBA ’51).
In 2003, Rock donated $25 million to Harvard Business School to support the entrepreneurship faculty and their research, fellowships for MBA and doctoral students, symposia and conferences, and new outreach efforts to extend the impact of the School's extensive work in this field. To further contribute to its research and course development efforts, Harvard Business School also established the California Research Center in Silicon Valley in 1997.
Harvard Business School offered the country's first business school course in entrepreneurship in 1947. Today, members of the HBS Entrepreneurial Management Unit teach a required course to some 900 students in the first year of the MBA program as well as a broad selection of electives to second-year students. The United States Association for Small Business and Entrepreneurship has recognized the Harvard Business School entrepreneurship program as the best in the country.
About Harvard Business School
Founded in 1908 as part of Harvard University, Harvard Business School (www.hbs.edu) is located on a 40-acre campus in Boston. Its faculty of more than 200 offers full-time programs leading to the MBA and doctoral degrees, as well as more than 40 Executive Education programs. For almost a century, HBS faculty have drawn on their research, their experience in working with organizations worldwide, and their passion for teaching to educate leaders who have shaped the practice of business around the globe.