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They're in the Money
Yale entrepreneurs group awards grants at summit
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Business New Haven
4/28/2003
By: BNH
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With the economy in recession and Wall Street still not stabilized from the war in Iraq, enterprising Yalies nevertheless managed to receive funding for six prospective companies earlier this month at the Yale Entrepreneurial Society's (YES) second annual Innovation Summit.
Proposals for an educational company and a fuel technology system received funding through YES' “Y50K Entrepreneurship Competition.” The winners were announced after a day of panels and speakers during the Innovation Summit April 12. Speakers, including the presidents of Honest Tea, Save the Children and CircleLending, focused mainly on the challenges of creating socially responsible business models.
From a field of some 40 teams, the competition awarded six prizes to companies in the categories of social and for-profit entrepreneurship. Winning teams received awards ranging from $7,500 to $12,500 in cash, as well as additional equivalent amount in services.
The winner in the category of social entrepreneurship was “Our Education,” a team that plans to create a magazine to provide student feedback for secondary education reform. According to the group's executive summary, the project is based on a student-produced quarterly magazine and Web site available to third parties who are interested in the student voice in education. The members of Our Education said they believed students' voices were not being heard in the reform process.
The for-profit winner was “Fuel Communication Solutions Inc.,” which according to its project summary, has developed a patent-pending process that saves fuel oil and propane dealers between 25 and 50 percent in operating expenses.
Yale sophomore Matt Sherwin, vice president of Y50K, said he was satisfied with the results of the competition.
“The teams that ended up winning will definitely end up becoming successful businesses,” Sherwin told the Yale Daily News. “On the non-profit, our check will give them a huge jump and take them to the next level.”
In addition to the Y50K competition, the Innovation Summit featured panel discussions peopled with CEOs, venture capital directors, Yale professors and students.
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