DePaul New Venture Challenge - And the Winner is....

I was fortunate to participate as a business plan judge in DePaul University's New Venture Challenge.  This was DePaul's 2nd business plan competition hosted and organized by its Coleman Entrepreneurship Center.  I was on the planning committee for the first competition. 

It was a long afternoon that started with the 3 finalists giving presentations and answering questions from a panel of 5 judges.  All of the presenters were either DePaul students or recent graduates. 

The first presenter was from an impressive junior, Rania El-Sorrogy of Dance Network, which is an online portal and community for dance videos.

The second presenter was from graduate student Bodee Kittikamron of QuadMarket.com.  Bodee launched the business a few months ago, which combines social networking and online classified listings for the college market.

The third presenter was from recent alumnus John Reh of Valkyrie Professional Services, which is a professional staffing firm that focuses on easier services.

And the winner was....Dance Network.  Second place was Vaklyrie Professional Services.  Congratulations to all of the finalists and especially to the winner.

The DePaul family and Chicago community really came together to make this a successful event.  Relationships were definitely leveraged, fostered, and created to make this a worthwhile competition.  Over 100 people stepped up to volunteer.