by Joanne Leung

Both students and alumni from SFU’s Beedie School of Business have been selected to compete on February 11 for $5000 in cash prizes at the upcoming Coast Capital Savings Venture Prize Competition, which will take place at the Segal Graduate School of Business in downtown Vancouver.

The start-up competition is organized by SFU Venture Connection, recognizing excellence in business development among early-stage clients participating in the VentureSpark program.

Of the seven finalists—the list was narrowed down from an initial 17 applications—four are from Beedie:

• Texts 4 Health, Bella Hwang (MBA 2011)
• VenueWize, Arvand Alviri (BBA 2011)
• Winsphere, Gordon Swenson (BBA student)
• New Heights Creative (Adsonnaps), Raymond Dich (BBA 2008)

Among the jury panel for the competition will be Beedie student Milun Tesovic, co-founder of MetroLyrics.com—the most comprehensive database of music lyrics in the world that was recently integrated into CBS Interactive Music Group. He will also be the keynote speaker at the reception. In 2008, Tesovic’s MetroLeap Media Inc. — co-founded with EMBA alumnus Alan Juristovski — was the inaugural client in Venture Connection’s early-stage incubator, VentureLabs, and Tesovic continues to be an active supporter of SFU Venture Connection and the Beedie School of Business.

For more information about the Coast Capital Savings Venture Prize, visit http://ventureconnection.sfu.ca/index.php?/learn/coast_capital_savings_venture_prize_competition

To attend the SFU Venture Prize reception, please register at http://sfuventureprize.eventbrite.com

About Venture Connection

SFU Venture Connection provides support for student ventures from initial idea to business validation through provision of an early-stage business accelerator, mentorship, co-op terms, competitions, networking, speaker events, workshops & seminars, and other business resources.  Over 1800 students have participated since 2009 in its range of programs, with development services provided to over 175 student venture teams.  For more information, visit http://ventureconnection.sfu.ca

Tags: Adsonnaps, Alan Juristovski, Arvand Alviri, BBA alum, Beedie, Beedie School of Business, Bella Hwang, Coast Capital Savings, Coast Capital Savings Venture Prize Competition, competition, Gordon Swenson, MetroLeap, MetroLeap Media Inc., MetroLyrics, Milun Tesovic, New Heights Creative, Raymond Dich, Segal Graduate School, sfu, Simon Fraser University, Texts 4 Health, Venture Connection, VenueWize, Winsphere