Beedie undergraduate innovation showcased at I-3 competition

The 2013 I-3 Competition winners. From left to right: Samuel Wilsher, Thomas Fairburn, Nicholas Schoepfer, and Nico Bescos.

BBA students at the Beedie School of Business demonstrated their entrepreneurship and innovation skills in front of a guest panel of some of BC’s top business minds at the annual I-3 competition.

The I-3 competition, formerly known as the Ken Spencer Competition, is held in conjunction with the Business 477: New Venture Planning class. Each year, students are asked to design a new product or service and a viable business plan to commercialize their venture, and present their ideas in front of a Dragons’ Den style panel of judges.

The winning venture was Zorb, a convenient charging solution for customer mobile devices targeted at the hospitality sector. The team, which consisted entirely of students from the University of Bath in the UK on exchange at the Beedie School of Business, saw members Nico Bescos, Thomas Fairburn, Nicholas Schoepfer, and Samuel Wilsher take home the first prize of $500.

Second place went to Intercare, a healthcare software provider whose services would include e-prescription capabilities and electronic health record management, earning $250 for team members Renee Chau, Sybil Loo, Nancy Li, and Jason Yu.

The bronze medal went to Trenddy, an all-encompassing social media software platform that displays social media trends for fashion products, with Alicia Wong, Robin Dong and Jackson Chao winning $100 for their efforts.

“The New Venture Planning class sets students a challenging task – to create not only a new venture concept with a viable business plan, but one that is attractive to angel and venture capital investors,” said Beedie lecturer and class instructor Bernie Maroney. “The competition has resulted in some remarkable business concepts over the years and this year was no exception. These aspiring entrepreneurs can be immensely proud of the ventures they have created.”

The judging panel this year consisted of experienced angel investors and coaches from the local business community, and included three graduates of the Management of Technology MBA at the Beedie School of Business:  Glen Lougheed, founder of NodeFly; Frederica Bell-Jensen, bio-tech consultant and entrepreneur; and Rahul Sharma, Senior Sales Manager, Commercial Banking and Capital Markets, HSBC.

Other members of the panel were Deb Durocher, Director, Managed IT Centre of Excellence, TELUS; and Stewart Marshall, CFO at web-based communication management system InTouch Technology.