CU New Venture Challenge » silicon flatirons

CU NVC Pitch Night: Over 50 Great Business Ideas

admin — Thu, 04 Nov 2010 17:54:04 +0000

This year at Pitch Night, over 50 incredible business ideas were presented to a packed crowd, the largest number of competitors ever for the CU New Venture Challenge! View a list of the presenters and their contact information, check out more photos here, and read on for some highlights of the event below.

The panel of judges included Jeff Nytch from the Entrepreneurship Center in the Music School, Meg Ambrose from ATLAS, Frank Moyes from the Business School’s Deming Center, and Brad Bernthal of the Silicon Flatirons Center at the Law School. Presented with such an overwhelming selection of brilliant ideas, these judges were hard-pressed to choose winners, but they did their best to give recognition to some notable pitches and thank everyone for participating.

Winning for most original idea was Louis Dankovich, who presented a plan to develop bedbug traps based on CO2 management. Best pitch went to Felipe Recart for his charming presentation about providing Chileans with delicious kettle-baked potato chips instead of the thin, oily product that always leaves him with “a profound sense of remorse.” The wild card winner, Hamed Yazdi, presented his entire pitch in poetry, and the overall prize went to Sean Baxter for his online fashion game for Tween girls.

In addition to these outstanding presentations, there were many other compelling pitches throughout the evening, ranging from an actual working model of a carbon sequestration box and an app that lets people pay their friends by smart phone when dividing a big bill, to healthy beer, cool chicken coops, and covered wagon campers. Themes of the evening included a passion for social justice, community, and volunteering, an interest in health and the environment, and solutions to improve efficiency for a wide range of people.

Congratulations to everyone who got this year’s New Venture Challenge off to such a great start at Pitch Night! Remember to join us for Mentor Speed Dating Night on Monday, November 15th starting at 6:15pm in the Wolf Law School, with an Entrepreneurs Unplugged presentation followed by the opportunity to network with a wide range of business leaders. Let the games begin!

Silicon Flatirons 10th Anniversary Video

admin — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 01:30:41 +0000

At the banquet this past Sunday in connection with the Silicon Flatirons Digital Broadband Migration Conference, a video commemorating the past ten years was unveiled. Here it is for your viewing pleasure!

Silicon Flatirons 10th Anniversary from Kendall Media Group on Vimeo.

If you’re looking for more information about the annual conference, check out some of the footage NextGenWeb captured this year. The first panel of the conference, moderated by Phil Weiser, included some snappy comments from local legend Brad Feld:

Paul Berberian at Entrepreneurs Unplugged

pennerj — Tue, 16 Sep 2008 20:12:52 +0000

Silicon Flatirons is hosting entrepreneur Paul Berberian in its Entrepreneurs Unplugged series, tomorrow, September 17th at 6pm in the engineering center, room ECCR 265. Mr. Berberian is an experienced chief executive officer and one of Colorado’s leading entrepreneurs.

Over the last 15 years, Mr. Berberian has founded or co-founded several high-tech companies. Most recently he co-founded Market Force Information, a leading customer experience measurement service for large retailers. Prior to that he was the founder and CEO of Zuzingo, maker of a novelty product called the Zenie Bottle. He was also the former CEO and co-founder of Raindance Communications, a web and phone conferencing services company acquired by West Corporation in 2006. Before founding Raindance, Mr. Berberian was co-founder and CEO of LINK-VTC, a video teleconferencing company, which was sold in 1995 to Frontier Communications. Prior to LINK-VTC, Mr. Berberian was co-owner of a plastic badge manufacturer in Long Beach CA. Mr. Berberian is a distinguished graduate of the US Air Force Academy.

Entrepreneurs Unplugged is a meeting place where faculty, students and community members with technical backgrounds learn about and get involved in entrepreneurship. In particular, the program offers students and faculty an opportunity to learn how a successful start up is created as well as an opportunity to network. Each Entrepreneurs Unplugged meeting features food, drink and – most importantly – an experienced entrepreneur to discuss his/her start-up experiences. Robert Reich of Me.dium (who leads the Boulder New Tech MeetUp) and Jason Mendelson of Foundry Group serve as the program’s moderators.